


The Millennium Deal - Three: Evidence

by Cara_Loup



Series: The Millennium Deal [4]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Adventure, Friendship/Love, M/M, Mystery, Romance, Telepathic Bond, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:23:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cara_Loup/pseuds/Cara_Loup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han set his teeth. Black space gaped wide open to swallow the Falcon, and he was racing her to hell and back, sweat running down his temple and the side of his nose.	<br/>Until she came around, as if in answer to his call, swooping with murderous speed. A first barrage splashed against the canopy in blinding red — and red blossomed into fury, filled his vision and blanked his mind.	<br/>A hand on his arm. “Han, listen to me.” Gripping hard, gripping for nerve. “You’ll get us both killed.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Millennium Deal - Three: Evidence

** Three: Evidence  **

They’d taken him straight into the dim heart of Corellian fancy, holding out for a city in the sky. From uncharted blackness floated a giant wraith, a skeletal structure that sheltered clusters of runlights, lit portholes and docking ports, in between several miles worth of blacked-out levels.

_A converted migration ark_ , Han caught himself out of surprise. One of the ancient models that had been decommissioned a generation ago.

And sure enough, she carried all the marks of far-out travels, battered and slag-crusted, meteorite dents and carbon scores blackening the shadows in the girderwork of her exterior hull. Repairs and maintenance had to be eating up regular fortunes. Though it made sense that the kingfish would favor a mobile base, his choice of vessel didn’t mesh all that well with the laser-point economy of the syndicate’s tactics.

“Welcome to our citadel,” said Jaco Tyr, the slick upstart with shined-button eyes. Fingers playing the shuttle’s controls all the way through a flawless touchdown.

“Where’d you find this relic?” Unsnapping the safety buckle, Han kept his movements carefully lax. _Last time I heard, it was the land of the dead_...

“That’s a long story. You’ll hear about it eventually.” The shrewd, supercilious smile switched on again as if on automatic. “Let me take you to our leader, as the saying goes.”

“I can’t wait,” Han returned on a caustic note.

The docking bay level brimmed with surveillance pickups and armed guards in black leather and slacks, the makeshift trademark of all the shadowmen in the criminal spectrum. Heavy blaster rifles swinging at their hips. A score of eyes tracked them to the lift, and Han tried an innocuous look. Duly impressed, but not concerned. He made a point of glancing discreetly aside when his escort traded clearance codes with the lift panel.

“Want me to hand over my blaster too?” he asked flippantly. “Or submit to a bodycheck for explosives and poisons?”

“Oh, we trust your survival instincts,” Slick retorted with the usual show of teeth. “How much further we can trust you... well, that’s not for me to decide.”

When the lift cabin shuffled to a stop, halfway through the main hull, Han wondered if enduring a guided tour was part of the procedures. He stepped out into gloomy dereliction. Whole sections of the ship had the look of a ghost town, from gutted control rooms to gaping storage compartments and corridors lit by the stringy shine of ancient lucite burners. Some of the passageways showed recent efforts at scraping an infestation of fungoid growths and silicate-based lichen off the bulkhead, baring the rough tracks of corrosion. Somebody had been fighting an intermittent war against decades of neglect.

“We’ve got fully functional lifts, naturally,” Jaco Tyr announced. “Both vertical and lateral. Thought you might want a look around. You’re going to spend a lot of time aboard, if you take the deal we’re offering.”

“Don’t tell me I’m lookin’ at crew quarters.” Han glanced down another derelict corridor and tucked all the sights away for later scrutiny. “Not that I’m picky, but some of the plantlife round here looks pretty active.” That comment prodded a dry chuckle from his guide.

“Still enough time to get everything spruced up,” Slick remarked breezily and continued fast, “you’ll get a chance to look at the refitted engineering levels later” — like he’d almost let something slip. “This way.”

Straight ahead, another lift door gleamed from the patchwork of steel and grimy lighting. Han crossed the last stretch of silence with something close to relief. A transport this size could carry thousands of passengers and crew; that parts were uninhabitable didn’t mean there couldn’t be a small army of gun-slingers aboard. But there was something about the vast spaces left to darkness that made him uneasy.

“Take my advice...” The lift chimed, and Jaco Tyr ran a hand over his sleeked hair that had to come away oily. Oddly nervous, all of a sudden. “Don’t ask too many questions if you can help it.”

“That’s a standard service, pal.” Cordial to a fault, Han followed the jerk of Tyr’s thumb down a short hallway, through an open door.

In the antechamber, the scent of recent waxing hung over wooden furniture, colonial style. In the room beyond, lighting was down to a single splash of drained amber.

“Come in,” said a scratchy voice, and a hand waved him imperiously to a high-backed chair.

Han sat and squared his shoulders, a small shiver of memories running up and down his spine. Out of the dimness, a legend leaned across the desk, and the legend smiled at him with dark golden eyes.

They’d nicknamed him the Pale Corsair, or the Pale Rider, pirate, expatriate and self-proclaimed avenger of wrongs against the Corellian spirit. Hero or bogeyman, depending where on Corellia you chose to collect your information. The name he went by in judicial records was Jerom Sardis Gol, and the last entry pronounced him dead for twenty-five years. Though there’d never been a picture to the name, Han could tell that for once rumor hadn’t exaggerated a thing.

The man was strictly albino, white hair turned flaxen by the timid light, white skin warmed by the same token. Saddled with the kind of pigmentation problem they still couldn’t fix, though medical technology had provided iris implants to protect those oversensitive eyes — and maybe soften the disturbing effect.

“Pleased to meet you at last, Captain Solo,” he said with studied nonchalance.

Han staunched the impulse to clear his throat, though Gol noticed anyway and seemed to take his awkwardness for due homage.

“You must be surprised to see me... in more than one way.”

“I had no idea—” Yeah, that much was obvious, wasn’t it?

“Of course not. I’ve grown rather fond of my incognito. Ever since...”

“The battle?” Corellia’s mythical last stand against the Empire, marking a turn in the tides of galactic politics.

“Yes.” The husky voice lowered. “You were too young to participate, but you must have heard the stories.”

“Who hasn’t?” Han shrugged, at a loss to guess where this might be heading. “You were there.”

“Aye.” Gol leaned back, retreating into a shadow zone while his knotted hands remained in light. “Like most of the free traders, I returned to defend the homelands. Funny how you can’t resist that call, no matter the quibbles between yourself and the government.” He quirked a smile. “Governments come and go,” he quoted the old saw with cutting irony, “but the Corellian heart keeps beating in the same place.”

It had all gone down in history, the kind of all-out defeat that kept churning in the minds of one generation after the next. Repeated up and down the spacelanes, among the Corellian privateers who’d slipped through the grid of Imperial trade laws.

“We could have won,” Gol said, old vehemence flickering briefly under his cool tones. “With the clans’ fleet, all those smart veterans and renegades, we could have made the Imperials realize that taking Corellia wasn’t worth the price they would have paid. But the central government chose to withdraw their armada. They decided to surrender. And they left us to be cut up by the Imperials like so much cattle on Blessed Harvest Day.”

Han didn’t waste a thought on objecting. Gol’s account clashed with the official version at every turn, but history was all about bending the facts to suit a present purpose anyway.

“You died that day,” he said bluntly.

“I died and returned from the dead.” Gol scrapped the melodramatics with a slicing gesture. “The truth is, I was left adrift in a dying ship. The Imperials didn’t bother to give us the final shove to eternity, they were too busy blasting the clan ships.” Another smile crinkled the white skin like paper gauze. “They miscalculated.”

“Sure looks like they did.” _Ask no questions_ , Han recalled: maybe Slick had thrown him a curve there. The old man didn’t waste any opportunity to spill his tales.

“My injuries made it impossible for me to engage in trade the way I used to,” he continued. “But I had some contacts and resources left and most of all, the will to pull through. Being tied to my sickbed left me a lot of time to study the stock-market. Did you know that the Corporate Sector prospered because of Imperial trade restrictions? Of course, you must know. It was the logical choice to lie low and contemplate the algorithms of profit. Yes, I did well...”

But if he’d gone into legit business, why cross the line again and resume flirting with far more brutal risks? A score of possible answers teased at Han’s mind, but perhaps the likeliest operated on a gut level. Maybe someone like Captain Gol just didn’t thrive on manipulating markets from a broking terminal.

“From the looks of it—” Han struck a note of grudging admiration, “you’ve done better than well.” But this was supposed to be a business meeting, a briefing of sorts, not a confab to rehash the pet subjects of Corellian nostalgia.

“And now, tell me,” Gol said briskly, as if he’d monitored his thoughts, “what are the assets you can offer to my organization?”

Like he’d come jouncing after the job like a kai-kai after a bone? Han switched to the old braggadocio routine without blinking. “I’m a good pilot, I’ve been in the trade for fifteen years, and I’m flexible. Throw me into any situation, and I’ll adapt—”

“You do, don’t you?” Gol interrupted, waving the answer to his question aside like a tiresome hold-up. “You see, I was born in this condition, a changeling, as local superstition has it. But a genetic quirk like this can be a blessing. It provides a strong motivation.” He snapped a finger in Han’s direction. “In your case, the reasons aren’t quite so obvious.”

“Sounds like you know a few things about me,” Han said uneasily.

“I do indeed.” A touch of amusement in the raspy voice. “Our paths crossed once. Indirectly.” Gol reached for a panel set into the polished vylwood of his desk. “You forgot to mention your ship.” A cover plate slid aside, exposing the bulbous eye of a holo projector. “Remember your last run to Corellia, years before the Empire fell apart?”

“Not the kind of trip anyone’s likely to forget,” Han muttered.

The holo sprang up in a flash — a simulation, not a recording, by the glossy finish — and outlined the Corellian system. Out of dark starfields sailed the Falcon, a shadow blazing into white elegance. Han watched her swoop and swerve, diving through the dust belt that ringed the third planet like a curtain of frost, and surface again into arctic radiance. So many years ago.

He tensed up automatically as the Falcon plunged towards Corellia’s nightside, weaving through the network of sensor buoys and old radar outposts. Like he could make the run safely this time. But a swarm of Imperial gunboats climbed over the ecliptic just like they had that day. Herding him straight into the killing fire of a bulk cruiser. _Damn bastards_. Years ripped past in a matter of moments, and his hand balled tight around the reviving rage.

Within moments, laser blasts netted his ship in scorching threads, punched hole after hole through the shields until the first black scars crawled across her freshly scrubbed skin. Yeah, he remembered. Blowouts in every vital system, short-circuits sputtering into flames that licked through the corridor, until the cockpit filled up with smoke. The Falcon lurched, went into a downward trundle, and leveled out shakily as his desperate maneuvers caught her for another moment.

“I thought we were dead meat,” he said while the Falcon fell towards the cloudy film of atmosphere.

The holo didn’t switch angles to pursue her headlong descent. From a blind spot in the cruiser’s scanning perimeter, a group of snub fighters shot up and drew lethal cannon fire off the freighter, their intermittent blasts mere stings to the thick hide of the Imperial behemoth.

“So that’s why!” Han blurted. “Why they stopped firing on us. I never knew.”

“I figured you could use some help.”

“Guess that means I owe you.” Of course, the simulation could’ve been rigged to suggest that debt of gratitude, but somehow Han didn’t think so. Too much accuracy in the details that implied first-hand knowledge.

Gol spread his hands, negligent in his generosity. “I’ll be honest, Solo. I didn’t do it for you. I had no idea who you were at the time. I interfered for the sake of your ship. Call it sentimentality, but I hate seeing such promise go to waste... especially after you’d put so much work into upgrading all her systems. You let the Falcon shine, the way she deserved. And so I decided to let you keep her.”

_Let me keep her, you—?_ It took an effort to trap the hot rejoinder behind his teeth.

Across the desk, Gol smiled at him like some benevolent daemon, waving a pawn ticket for his soul. “After this incident, I followed your career as much as I could.”

“I haven’t been anywhere near Corellia since then.”

“Indeed.” The old man nodded. “Do you have any family left on the homeworld?”

“Only distant kin, even by Corellian standards.” And everyone else gone, the hazards of time and war catching up with lethal suddenness. Han shook the thought like a parasite waiting to entrammel him in memories.

“I thought so.” A short tap to the panel cut the frozen projection. “I trust that you have no urgent business to attend on Ylab?”

Han took a moment to pretend consideration. “Nothing my associate can’t take care of.”

“Good. Then I suggest that you pick up your ship and your partner on Nam Korlis and return at once.” All business now, Gol placed his hands flat on the desk. “I have an assignment for you.”

“Which is what?”

“Not an entirely pleasant task, but succeed at it, and there’ll be a place for you in the top ranks of my organization.” Another pause for effect. “Your assignment concerns a troublesome individual,” Gol said easily. “A free trader by the name of Samiel Harad. You know him, and I’m sure you’ll know where to find him. I want you to remove him from the business.”

_Remove him_ — a fast chill caught in Han’s gut, the hidden snag he’d been waiting for, though it bit deeper than he’d expected. But _remove_ didn’t equal orders to plug the old spacer. _Gotta come up with something_...

“We’ll discuss logistics when you’re back.” There it was, dismissal tossed at him with a hint of impatience.

Han shoved out of his chair and turned back at the doorstep, impulse prompting a final question. “What d’you call this ship?”

Gol raised an eyebrow. “The Mantura, of course. You know what that means, don’t you?”

It sounded curiously like a test, something sliding snakelike beneath the surface of the question that he couldn’t quite grasp. The connection itself seemed evident — “Allegiance to the flag,” Han offered, hoping that reply would unlock additional info.

Gol studied him a moment longer, lips pursed, fingers steepled under the reverent light. Shielding a hidden ace. Han couldn’t help the long chill raking his spine that was pure Corellian superstition.

In the corridor, Jaco Tyr waited to chaperon him back to the docking ports, by the straight route this time. While the lift rushed past all the lifeless decks, Han replayed the meeting in his mind. And the strange thought occurred to him that Gol wasn’t planning to conquer and eliminate the darkness aboard this ship. He was way too friendly with the dark.

* * *

On Nam Korlis, night crept up under the cover of sheeting rain. Han strolled past the long row of docking bays, pretending he hadn’t noticed all the covert stares that registered each of his steps — didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

On the other side of the galaxy, Luke would drop out of lightspeed sometime soon and perform a final vector change launching him towards the galactic Core. With the thought came a quick pang, the pressure of memories dragging at Han’s breath, hot and cold, unbalanced between fantasy and a soft, glistening dread. He swept his hair out of his eyes, the trickle of wetness between his fingers recalling gentler rainfall. Troubled circles stirring the lagoon.

From the Falcon’s lowered ramp, Chewbacca watched him, months of wariness and dissent still alive in his posture.

_Luke_. White midday heat moving over him with the scent of Luke’s skin. Han breathed deeply. “Chewie, you won’t believe this...”

In the cockpit, indicator lights strobed firefly patterns across the dark viewport. Han listened to his own account like some unlikely fable. Relaxing by doubtful degrees.

“It was nothing like I’d expected,” he finished, boots propped up on the flight console. “Who woulda thought, we got hired for our ship!” At Chewbacca’s rumbled question, he swung his chair around slowly. “Well, she’s _fast_ , for one.”

But the quizzical look in those deep-set eyes didn’t waver, and renewed alarm stole over him. Gol had spent a long time brooding in the dark that nurtured his choices.

“I don’t know, Chewie,” Han answered, hating the sudden tightness in his voice. “I don’t know what makes her so special to him.”

* * * * *

When Luke took his X-wing down through a frayed cloud belt, it felt as if he’d been gone half a lifetime. But when he stepped out on the landing pad, into gravity, the past weeks could have been curled up inside a few minutes, raveled like the conditional time within dreams.

The government’s own spaceport had been built in concentric rings, tasseled galleries overlooking the landing pads. Leia was waiting for him on the other side of a scan gate.

“Luke!” Her smile flew past a grid of clearsteel and laserlight. “I got your message half an hour ago.”

Her presence struck him with unexpected force, an awkward link to reality. The reality that passed as normal and now felt like a carefully scripted play. At a closer look, she’d read the truth off his face. She would know. Luke rubbed his hands together while a nervous red beam slid across him.

“Thank you, sir, have a good day,” purred the security droid and handed him his lightsaber.

Leia breathed out a sigh when she hugged him, hurriedly, as if something might interfere any moment. “Good to have you back.”

“How’ve you been?” Luke pulled back, edgy with anticipation, but no hint of recognition touched her face. “How did the rest of the conference go?”

“The Mon Cal delegation will recommend full membership to their government. It’s only a matter of formalities now. As for the Sullustians...” Leia cut herself short with a gesture. “Let’s just say, they’ve blown up the entire affair to ridiculous proportions. Not a day goes by without another request for an update from Lord Duscath.” The look she gave him appealed for good news.

“I suppose there’ll be a debriefing,” Luke hedged.

“Well, Rieekan and Teragk are practically standing by, but they’ll understand if you’d rather—”

“I’d just like to talk with you first.”

“Sure.” Leia pointed at a cafeteria one level above. “How about sitting down right there? It’s going to be more private than my office.” An ironic little smile accompanied that assessment, masking curiosity.

A wash of mixed smells charged the open terrace, exhaust spiced with the pungent low-tide tang. The sky was growing dusty white over the horizon. Luke took a chair close by the balustrade and fumbled for a start. Something to ease the transition. Through a congregation of flimsy chairs and one-legged tables, the server droid came weaving towards them.

“Do you want me to guess?” Leia threw him another smile, a flash of conspiratorial teasing between the reflections of light and heat, catching on empty tables and the droid’s rotund form. She punched in a quick order. “You know, you’ve grown pretty good at making a mystery out of things.”

Finally, there was no other way of telling her, except straight out — “It’s Han.” 

Leia’s expression went through a lightning change, too swift and thorough to read. “Han.” Startled, but not shocked, her glance drifting off into memory.

“Did you guess?”

“I’d wondered...” She raised her head, a conscious gesture of resistance to some subliminal pull. “I sometimes wondered if it might be him, but I put it down to wishful thinking.”

“You never mentioned that to me.” If she’d looked at him, she would have noticed the warmth of recollection crawling into his face.

“Well, I didn’t mean to—” With a toss of her head, Leia dismissed a statement of the obvious. “So he hasn’t given up on us after all.”

Something rose into her eyes with fierce speed, contradicting the practiced sobriety. _We knew it wasn’t working before Han left_. Perhaps that kind of truth shone brighter in hindsight.

_Would you want him back?_ Luke shifted in his seat. A thoughtful pause extended between them, inviting his explanations. Instead, raw sensation spilled through the fissures in his reasoning, subverting each considered word. And now Leia was watching him, her reaction settling with a smile.

“Well, how is he?”

“He’s fine — I mean, there’ve been problems, but he’s — he looks...” Luke shook his head. _Stop right there and start over_. “He’s bought an old house by a lagoon.”

That arbitrary piece of information drew a quizzical glance from Leia, half puzzled and half amused. He couldn’t say it now. _We’re lovers_. Words like pebbles skating across the lagoon, in a pretense of levity. Confirming the distance, measured by the letter, by the taut pulse beating faster in his throat.

“Perhaps you should start at the beginning,” Leia suggested dryly. The droid was back with their drinks, the sound of glass chimes counting out time from somewhere behind the bar.

“I should.” Luke carded his fingers through his hair, defenseless against the hot flutter in the pit of his stomach. Absurd. And energizing.

“Why do I have a feeling that we’d still be sitting here tomorrow?” Leia clinked their glasses together. “I sure hope you gave him a good razzing for keeping us in the dark. And I expect to hear all the details later.”

“It _will_ take some time.”

“I suppose Han agreed to take the assignment?”

Luke nodded and sipped on his drink, needing something to counter the dry neutrality of fact. He couldn’t treat it like a victory, but Leia wouldn’t expect that.

When she cupped her hands around the glass, thought replaced the sparkle in her eyes. “You know, you seem much more relaxed than you did before you left.”

Underneath that layer of electrified unrest, yes. Truly relaxed for the first time since the battle of Endor: at least that was how it felt. The sun of Ylab and the cadence of rainfall still pulsed through him as he started to talk. 

 

Half an hour later, he delivered a summary account to General Rieekan and Commodore Teragk. Relief settled visibly over both men. As if Han’s involvement had brought them any closer to a solution. Luke clamped down on a start of annoyance.

“I think the main risk we need to consider is the syndicate tracing Han’s connection to us,” he insisted. “They have little reason to trust him.”

“Of course.” Teragk tapped his stylus against the closed lip of the datapad as if swearing it to secrecy.

“Every contact will have to be arranged with the utmost circumspection,” Rieekan joined.

His confidence in Han’s proficiency lingered on, unbroken despite Coruscant and the aftermath, but from Teragk who’d never met Han, Luke picked up a sense of contained agitation. Startled, he pulled back instead of probing closer, suddenly aware how much he’d lowered his own shields.

“They saw us together on one occasion,” he continued, “during our run-in with syndicate men on Nam Korlis, but I left them no opportunity to recognize me.”

While Leia and Rieekan accepted that claim with unblinking ease, Teragk’s eyes narrowed. “If the syndicate suspects that Solo is working for us, they might use him to pass along whatever information suits their own purposes.”

“Han would see through such a stratagem,” Leia put in. “He’s been watching their activities for a while, and he’d find a way to let us know.”

But that was hardly good enough. Another jab of quick anger struck in Luke’s gut. He could see Han by the veranda doors, the hard line at the corner of his mouth holding loss and resentment in check.

“If they suspect anything, Han’s life will be on the line,” he said sharply.

General Rieekan met his eyes with straightforward sympathy. “I trust that he’s aware how much we appreciate his assistance. And that we’ll provide all the security and backup we can offer under the circumstances.”

No way around that limit, and they both knew it. Without another word, Luke handed his notes over, the list of frequencies and encryption codes that equaled a lifeline. From below the window, air conditioning buzzed into silence, and all he hadn’t said simmered under his skin.

“I’ve made all the arrangements with the middle-man,” he said, “and I’m going to stay involved with the proceedings from now on.”

“Your help is going to be most welcome.” Rieekan secured his notes to a clipboard before turning towards Leia. “There is another matter, Your Highness, that we’d like to bring to your attention. Commodore Teragk was going to apprise us of the Skylar groups’ activities.”

Teragk flipped his datapad open without looking at the small screen. “They’re religious splinter groups,” he explained. “The basic notion that unites them is the belief that Corellia will fall into terminal darkness at the turn of the millennium.”

“Turn of the millennium?” A small frown slanted up between Leia’s brows. “That’s more than a century from now.”

“Not by the old calendar,” Teragk answered. “And these groups are based in the northern clan territories where the old computation of time is still in use. The big alignment next month will mark the new millennium.”

“A rare planetary conjunction,” Rieekan helped out before Leia could insert another question. “It’s due in another thirty-nine days.”

“At that time, we expect the Skylars to gather on the Yannis archipelago,” Teragk continued. “We’ve collected most of their so-called manifestoes. They believe that Yannis is the sacred ground of the prophecies, where they’ll be safe from whatever disaster befalls.” Sarcasm edged to the surface with a twitch of his upper lip. “Some of them are anarchists who might be tempted to accelerate the prophesied chaos. We’ll have to be prepared for attempted acts of terrorism from that faction, but the majority are peaceful escapists.”

“What about their numbers?” Leia asked.

“According to the most recent estimates, there are approximately ten thousand active members. However, since they’re bound to bring their families along, we might be looking at eighty to a hundred thousand.”

“A _hundred thousand_ who’ll migrate to the archipelago to await the end of the world?” Clearly incredulous, Leia slanted a look at Teragk’s datapad. “That is quite a large group.”

_End of the world_... Luke glanced towards the window and thought of the Guild Hall frescoes, their pale, earthy colors and a shape so much like the Falcon swimming in the painted sky.

“Still, most of them are of the completely harmless variety,” Teragk assured them. “So long as we single out the troublemakers and keep them well apart from the visitors who’ll come to watch the alignment, there should be no security problems.”

“I hope so,” Leia said tersely. “Mon Mothma intends to sign the new membership treaty with the Mon Calamarians next month. We can’t afford any disruptions during the ceremony.”

Or the patchwork of the New Republic would start unraveling again along barely fastened seams, they all knew that. Clipped murmurs of assent concluded the meeting.

When Luke rose from his chair, he could suddenly feel the drag of fatigue in every limb. Time to return to his own place and resume the routines that would pattern the waiting.

And wake up every morning without the sound of Han’s breathing, his voice, in the closeness of sleep-warmed skin. Caught up in waiting for a change that was yet to come.

* * *

The dark lay close around him, finite and unbreathing. Wrested from nightmare by jerking muscles, Luke listened into silence, for the distant resonance of a shout or a sob. Anger, fear, revulsion pounding under his breastbone. He sat up and rubbed both hands over his face, the bedcovers sticking clammy with sweat to his chest. Another breath, and he could think again.

_What’d you expect? That the nightmares would just stop and never return?_

Sixteen damned months since Endor, and they hadn’t worn off or paled, though the intervals in between had lengthened. And yet, a sense of betrayal wound into his thoughts — _not this night, not so soon_ — as he took himself to the shower.

When he stepped out on the rooftop, a warm wind rushed him from the city, and he let it whip around him, every nerve in his body alive with protest. The nightmares were shapeless, always had been, void of presence that lent form to a threat. Just the fall over a cliff of blackness, through fathoms of empty blind panic — and the knowledge, just before he struck bottom, that he’d fallen into himself.

_Nothing in you worth knowing_.

Words that had assembled eventually, from sickening heaves of sensation, pushing coldly through his veins. Palpatine’s fire sliding along his nerve fibers and into his brain.

_What are you, Jedi?_

For months, he’d argued in silence, repeating the same debate over and over. Stumbling into the same impasse each time, because his father, while he reached for redemption, had still died. _What matters more, end or intention? Your love killed, did it not?_ Playing and replaying the same dialogue.

_You could be a vehicle of immense power_.

_And be empty of myself?_

_What is there to lose? The small, paltry loves that render you more vulnerable than you need to be? Your feelings will neither protect nor save anyone_.

It had taken him a long time to realize that Palpatine’s voice, inside his mind, was his own.

Luke wrapped his arms around his torso, drew up composure, the security of infallible shields. The shields that had grown tighter and tighter as he took control of his life, or thought that he did. He’d moved on, balancing conviction against occasional compromise. Reviewed what he’d learned, learned more, fought harder and tried to accept that there wouldn’t be any definite answers.

_But you can’t escape me_.

_Me_. That rush through blind emptiness.

Like so many times before, he opened himself, to let the Force disperse the rebellious surge of impatience and doubt. And paused, on the verge of surrender.

So much living, scintillating energy, poised to fill every void inside him. Compensating and demanding, the Force would replace frustration with purpose. For the first time since Endor, Luke resisted the familiar comfort. Trapped in the limits of self, like everyone else in this city.

Out of the stairwell floated a blithe whistle from Artoo, announcing an unexpected visitor. When Luke climbed down, a single light had been switched on in the lounge. Its bright spill pooled around the table and made a halo of Leia’s unbraided hair.

“I know it’s late.” A gesture of her slim hand, fluttering pale and apologetic under the glowbulb.

Luke covered the brief start of worry with a smile. “No problem.”

If there’d been an emergency, she would have used the comlink.

“So you couldn’t sleep either?” She looked him over, the ruffled array of mismatched shorts and undershirt, and something in her posture eased.

“I did, for a while. A dream woke me up.”

“I had nightmares about Alderaan for years,” Leia said, and he wasn’t surprised that she’d made the connection at once. “There were times when I thought they’d never stop. But lately I crash so hard, I don’t dream anymore. Or at least I don’t remember. I was lying awake...” She drifted off as she lowered herself into a wide, cushioned chair.

“You must’ve been thinking about Han.” A muscle tightened over Luke’s stomach, as if to deflect a blow.

“That, too.” Leia wrapped a long strand around her fingers, idly curling and uncurling it. “For a while, I wanted him to be my answer... to all the questions I’d never asked. He got to me no matter how hard I fought back, but that worked only before we really got to know each other.”

Luke paced from the circle of light. His face had to be an open book, but her glance had turned inward, tracking memories like a searchlight.

“What’s missing between us, Luke?” Leia asked abruptly. “Where did we go wrong? Or maybe I shouldn’t say _we_...” She drew her legs up on the seat, the relaxed posture at odds with her expression. “Sometimes, when you’ve been gone for a while, I can suddenly see how much you’ve changed.”

“Not too much, I hope,” Luke tried, a reflexive attempt to ease the mood.

“I’m not sure I could tell,” she returned with scathing candor. “I haven’t been very attentive. But do you realize for how long you’ve locked yourself away?”

“I had to find a balance of some kind.” He reviewed the weeks, the months that had followed Endor, the sense of circling restlessly in a haze. _Had to pull myself together somehow_.

“There’s so much I can’t share,” he started, “simply because there’s no one else left. Ben, Yoda, Anakin... they’re all gone.” He caught the brief tightening of Leia’s mouth, a stir of guilt that shouldn’t be there. “Look — did I ever tell you that the Jedi of the old order used a diversity of mental links?” Close communion applied for healing or training, a staggering closeness. The notion had struck him with a deep ambivalence when he’d first come across it. Impossible to want that much, or to endure it. “The Force never kept them isolated,” he went on, “but that’s how it was for me. And it seemed... appropriate. I can sense feelings, motivations, intentions, if I let myself.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to abuse what power I have, or put anyone at a disadvantage.”

“You’re too conscientious sometimes,” Leia said with mock-sternness and sobered again in a heartbeat. “But, yes, I can see that it puts you in a very difficult position.”

Luke glanced down into his hands. “It reduced me to reacting and dealing with things in a very impersonal way. And that was never enough. The Force — being a Jedi — that’s who I am, it’s nothing I can just switch off.” Explanations came easier now, starting to flow from a subtle shift of perspective. “Maybe that’s where _I_ went wrong. I felt incomplete, because there was always a gap between me and the things I do... but it doesn’t have to be that way.” He stopped in front of Leia’s chair.

“It shouldn’t.” She studied him, slightly bewildered.

_I’m too agitated. Too edgy_. Luke reached for calm with only half his mind.

“Actually, it wasn’t thinking about Han that kept me awake,” Leia said finally, a decision made. “I was thinking about you and me. And that I still don’t know you half as well as I’d like to. All the things you’ve just told me — I never knew.”

“We’ve both been pretty busy.”

Leia shook her head, refusing excuses. “I’ve never really tried to meet you in the middle, have I? I’ve never really listened when you talked about the Force. And then, of course, there’s Vader...” She trailed off, matter-of-factness shifting towards regret. “I’ve forced you to keep our secret.”

“That’s not you, it’s our situation,” Luke argued with some force. “I accept that.”

“But you’d like to acknowledge him, wouldn’t you.” Leia’s tone implied no question. “Honestly, I can’t promise that I’ll ever think of Vader as a _father_ —” and her lips tightened at the word, “—but I’m ready to listen. I’d like you to tell me more about the Force sometime, what it means to you, how it works for you.”

Against the familiar limit, her resolve stood out, the stark result of a long struggle.

“I could show you some meditation techniques too,” Luke offered. “It’s going to help when you can’t sleep.”

“That would be very welcome indeed.” Leia smiled and shook her hair back as she pushed to her feet. “But now I’ve kept you awake long enough. Try to sleep some more. I will.”

After she’d left, Luke took a blanket up to the rooftop and stretched out under the half-lit sky. The city’s reflections played languidly across the nightscape. Dream-sensations returned, different now, charged with amorphous potential. As if parts of his life were emerging from limbo, one by one.

_If there is a limit, I want to discover it myself. And if there’s a chance_ —

With the thought, heedless impulse quickened inside him, reaching hard and fast towards the other side of the galaxy. Conviction surged again, clear and immediate, from a source beyond the limits of reason. It was possible. He’d felt it on Dagobah, when he’d stretched hard — with the part of the Force that belonged only to himself — to make a deeper connection. There, and on Ylab, on Nam Korlis. A power switching on that didn’t just channel and receive. No answer, not yet, but it felt like waking again. Like waking to Han’s touch, to the knowledge of his hands.

Between one breath and another, Luke drew recollection from the depth of his body until it burned again on the surface of his skin. An armor of heat and light, ready to dissolve at a touch. And he wanted to use this feeling, this live circuit inside himself, to grab the nightmare by the neck and wring it —

_Don’t depend on it_ , he warned himself. Nothing much had been said between him and Han, every notion about the future suspended for the duration of this assignment. Stranded in the middle of his new life, perhaps all Han had needed was a temporary hold. Any port in a storm, was the Corellian way of phrasing it.

_I don’t want to cling to you for the wrong reasons_ , Luke thought and knew at the same time that there was no reason at all for what he’d felt when their bodies moved together. And it had meant more to Han, more than recourse to old trust and affection. That last morning, he’d ripped himself away with a violent effort. _You’ve given me a very good reason_...

Another wash of feeling surged and left Luke breathless. Too long, the bigger part had lain dormant inside him, arrested in the comfort of friendship, but the last weeks had slammed all those disparate sentiments and yearnings together with such force, they were impossible to ignore now. His heart hammered without reason. Beating out a message into darkness. _I want you back. And then_...

The dark haze of recollection warmed easily into pleasure, fresh sparks of discovery swarming into hollow spaces, filling and igniting him. _Yes, like that_... With closed eyes, he savored the tension that coiled suggestively in his groin. He slipped a hand down, cupped it over the rush of blood and pulse. Coaxing delicious tremors that passed into the Force and wrapped around him, a vibration gentle as laughter.

When he opened his eyes again, the gulls were sliding along lazy air currents, his generous, accidental companions. Under a thick covering of clouds, night diluted slowly into the watery grayness that would become morning.

* * * * *

Thick carpeting swallowed the angry snap of Han’s footfalls, and that was all for the better. Mission accomplished. Samiel Harad had been successfully removed from business. Give yourself a pat on the back and crawl up another rung in the great hierarchy of droppers and dirt movers. As he stalked away from Gol’s state rooms, Han wrestled pointlessly with the chafing nature of compromise.

 _Interesting solution_ , had been Gol’s only comment. Like he’d taken a test that provided all kinds of covert clues. For some reason, reporting while Gol fixed him with his brass-eyed stare came a close second to having a front tooth pulled. _Interesting_.

Well, Samiel Harad would hardly subscribe to that view, booked as he was to spend the next few years watching the gnats gambol across the walls of a detention cell.

_Doesn’t have to be years_ , Han stemmed the uncomfortable thought. _Just ‘til I get the job done_. Though breaking Harad out of the Parsine slammer wouldn’t be quite the easy ride that getting him banged up had been. Over the past years, the old spacer had left his mark on wanted lists all over the Outer Rim; a legion of fingerprints, retina scans and brushed-up holos framed him for breaking every trade law in sight.

All it took was some research, a tip-off to the most professional outfit, and law enforcement on Parsis exploded into action. They’d bagged Harad the moment he landed his freighter on an unregistered pad in the usually lawless wilderness. The local pen, according to reliable sources, wasn’t half bad a place, reasonably clean and hospitable. But for an eternal hotshot like Harad, it would equal living in the armpit of hell.

_I’ll make it up to you, pal_ , Han thought uneasily — provided he didn’t get his teeth kicked in first. By now, Harad would have it pegged that somebody had snitched on him, and he’d manage to pass word along somehow. While he served thin time, all his friends in the business — not to mention two brothers and an odd number of kids by as many lovers — would be grinding an axe for the traitor.

_Yeah, but they can’t trace the word back to me_. Han stepped into the lift and tried to nudge his mind towards more pleasant thoughts. Like flying the Falcon to Ylab, if only for a quick getaway, to breathe the clean, moist air over the jungle —

The lift doors swished open, and in another half-second, Jaco Tyr slunk out of a corner. Thumbs hooked behind his belt, he approached, doing his too-much-muscle walk. “Off on a holiday, Solo?”

“The boss says I’ve earned my keep so far.”

“Yeah, you’re the favorite son now, aren’t you?” Tyr drawled, voice thickened by several layers of jealous sarcasm. “But let me warn you... it never lasts. Gol is too demanding. Nobody lives up to his standards.”

_Looks like you learned that the hard way, Slick_. Han shrugged. “So what? Gotta make the best of every lucky streak.”

“Lucky?” An ugly smile disrupted Tyr’s sulk. “They _all_ feel that way for a while.”

“Speak for yourself.” Han started walking in the direction of the docking ports.

“Heard you got yourself lovely company for the trip.”

When he turned back, Slick smirked openly, and he sure wasn’t referring to Chewie.

“Only the best of everything,” Han tossed over his shoulder, covering a twinge of discomfort. He’d fully expected to be tagged with a watchdog, once he returned to Ylab, but the notion still didn’t wash all that well.

Under the pretext of keeping an eye on his own business, he’d traded subspace messages with Castor, slipping in as much info as he dared. Passing something more substantial along would require fast, creative thinking.

When Han walked into the docking bay, Jiffra Kemál lounged against one of the Falcon’s landing struts, and several overdue pennies dropped at once. Of course she worked for Gol. And like as not, she’d monitored his activities and accounts ever since he’d dropped anchor on Ylab.

“I should’ve guessed, huh?” Han offered a rueful grin. “You always knew which way’s up.”

“So do you.” She winked at him. “You just like playing hard to get.”

“Raising the stakes’s what keeps life interesting,” he bantered back. “I take it you’re looking for a ride home?”

“Thanks for offering.” Jiffra’s smile was brilliant and looked almost natural, like the sway of her hips as she climbed the ramp before him.

No wonder Gol had managed to corner a tough veteran like Dayton. Han wondered how many hired hands worked undercover for the syndicate, and where. Something to keep in mind when he dispatched his report to Intell.

“Chewie!” he hollered with false cheer. “Look who’s here!” 

 

Short as the trip was, Han abandoned the cockpit the moment they’d hit lightspeed. He needed a shower anyway, and it seemed like the only place where Jiffra wouldn’t tail him.

After a quick dive under the hot spray, Han grabbed his comlink. Thanks to Castor who’d rustled it up, this particular model was equipped with a miniature chip that recorded messages and stored them on datadisks half the size of a thumbnail.

While the hot water pattered on, Han started to talk, hoping the sound wouldn’t blur too much. He’d scribbled a few notes in a private digit code, but for the rest of it relied on memory. Gol was nothing if not paranoid, probably had someone tape every word when he talked in his sleep, too.

“I think his short-term goal is controlling the stock market on Nam Korlis,” Han said, mouth close to the pickup. “He’s familiar with all the fine points of the business. Made a fortune in the Corporate Sector. Funds distributed throughout the Rim, possibly more back there. No point trying to cut his supply lines.”

Rubbing at his hair with a towel, Han started to list the most recent operations, names of Gol’s leading hoodlums, confirmed or possible business connections. After three weeks with the mob, it took him a mortal half hour. Any longer, and Lady Ambition would start wondering if he had a personal hygiene fetish.

With a passing grimace at the mirror, Han fished for fresh clothes. “Hope that helps. Good luck back there... be thinking of you.”

There was always a chance Luke would get to hear his recording.

* * *

Planetfall swept them into a violet onset of dusk. Lakes and waterways glittered through transparent air, patches of mist clinging to the thick of the jungle. Han triggered the hatch the moment they’d settled on solid ground.

Everything smelled of fresh rain, the jungle colors almost vibrant with wetness. As he walked down the ramp, Han took a deep breath and felt his throat tighten up. Too much like the last morning, just before he’d left, and — hell, he couldn’t think of it right now. Couldn’t indulge that image of Luke right there on the porch for a moment longer.

And now it was Castor waiting for him, in his shabby old jacket, a look of worry steeled back behind his wide grin.

“Been a while,” Han returned the greeting, his own grin a matching grimace.

“We gotta work on some book-keeping,” he added for Jiffra as they walked through to the lounge. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable?”

“Right, why don’t I?” She sank into the nearest chair, all long limbs and studied grace, and took a slow look around. “So this is where you live.”

“I’ll get the drinks,” Castor offered.

“Yeah,” Han said to both of them.

“Kinda lonely, hmm?”

He shrugged, glancing through the glass doors at the foggy mirror of the lagoon.

“Where’s your fair-haired plaything?”

Nothing but the usual shades of smug teasing in her voice, but an alarm bell went off in Han’s head all the same. She and Luke had been introduced — damn careless, but he’d been so caught up in other things at the time — and Jiffra recalled with casual accuracy. Bristling at her choice of words wouldn’t help either.

“Gone home to momma, I suspect.” Han turned a lopsided grin on her and spread his hands in ironic resignation. Grateful as all hells when Castor sauntered back in with their drinks and a random heap of paperwork.

They went through it like diligent actors, trading comments in spacer jargon until Chewie came lumbering in and growled insistent questions about dinner.

“I’ve stacked the pantry this morning.” Castor swept up some of the prints and pushed from his seat. “No problem fixing us something.”

“I bet you could use some assistance.” Jiffra displayed her elegant body in an artful stretch.

“I’ll be with you in a minute.” Han pointed to his half-drained glass.

When the first pot rattled in the kitchen, he threw the glass doors wide open and stepped out on the veranda. Drowning conscious thought in a lungful of scented air, in the lazy slosh of water to soggy earth.

A couple of fallen leaves drifted on the lagoon’s surface, like pale flakes of twilight. He could almost feel the liquid softness against his skin, provoking and caressing, the white rush of spray — then the breathless clash, and arms parting the water to catch around his chest.

Before memory could take advantage of him, Han veered back to rational thinking. Slipping Castor the datadisk shouldn’t be a problem; then, when they reported back to His Omniscience, Jiffra would bear witness to his snow-white slate. And from there, he’d haul himself up another rung towards the murky heights of Gol’s genius.

_Favorite son_. Han snorted and emptied his glass. Not by a long shot. Slick had to be burning in the hellfires of envy if he truly thought that. Though it was true, Gol seemed to like having him around — as much as he ever liked anybody. And maybe up to a point, their minds worked alike. Gol was an accomplished cynic, sporting his views like rapiers, and to some of them Han could easily subscribe.

_Bureaucrats_ , he recalled Gol’s trenchant voice. _Abolish the caste of bureaucrats and administrators, and you’ve stopped a plague. Collaborators at heart, all of them, no matter who claims to rule the galaxy this week_.

And whatever his ultimate ambition, Gol followed no calling to galactic dictatorship. Like every clan-bred Corellian, he’d cultivated his mistrust of centralized governments and universal laws.

_Couldn’t stand it, could you? The New Republic_. A stray light painted humor into the old man’s brass stare. _Not the life for one like you, Solo. No cog in the big dirty wheel, right?_

_Right now I’m a cog in your wheel_.

A chuckle like iron over dry grass. _Modesty doesn’t suit you_.

Han set his glass down on the railing, night growing deeper now, the mingling odors more intense. Gol enjoyed watching the dog-fights among his crew. At the rate he got through prized pets, Han reckoned he’d be history in a month or two.

_I’d better be gone in a month or two_. Gone — as in, lucky to get away with a shirt on his back. Intell would refund him for the house, he supposed. Though not for the view, would they? Not for the night air that cajoled his senses, thick with recollection. Instead they’d put polish to his name with new achievements and perhaps another medal.

Han shook his head, a shadow movement sliding across the water below. Couldn’t see that homecoming happen; his past struck down so firmly that it canceled the future in one swipe. Stones dropped in the water: the things he’d chosen to forget and others that’d sunk under the weight of their own insignificance. Except —

Except for the tug on his inner compass. Homing, as if drawn by a primal instinct.

He’d felt it the moment Luke had pulled him into a tight hug, full of warmth and recognition and all the things he’d left behind. Resisting only for so long, until he’d seized this assignment like a return ticket. A guarantee that he wouldn’t come crawling back with nothing but failure to show for his troubles. Everything was riding on a single card now.

He turned brusquely, away from the scents that called up too much of everything — and how in hell could he go to sleep in that bed, and hold off the memories? The totally useless hope that things could work out differently this time.

Maybe he shouldn’t come back here for a while. He could meet with Castor in the settlement next time, or on Nam Korlis for convenience. Couldn’t risk slipping in and out of his act too often.

Han pushed away from the railing when a tart smell stung in his nose. Smoke. Were they letting something burn in the kitchen? But the breeze blew it over from across the lake. Had to be a damn big fire.

“Chewie!” Han called over his shoulder, the first tuft of smoke breaching the dusky ridge of the jungle, blotting out a patch of sky. A flurry of steps at his back.

“Where does this come from?” Castor sniffed with the air of an expert, head cocked at Chewbacca’s troubled woofs.

“Far side of the lake, huh?” Han swung round in time to see recognition catch on Jiffra’s face.

“Got a fast flyer, Solo?” Terse and brittle, her voice full of misgivings.

Dayton’s estate lay that way.

 

By the time they crossed the lake, a thick blanket of smoke clogged over the water, firelight throbbing at the heart of the fog. A crowd had gathered on the shore and watched as if hypnotized while Dayton’s worldly possessions went up in frenetic heat.

“Looks like an expert’s job to me,” Castor said below his breath. “Takes a hot package of incense to make it catch so fast.”

“And someone on the inside to kill the alarm system,” Han muttered. Flawlessly planned and brutally executed, the attack carried a signature he would’ve recognized blind. It was motivation that troubled him.

Even across the distance, the heat stung his eyes, the white core of the fire reaching temperatures that would melt glass. Deep in the roar of flames, the blue flickers of implosions announced the death of electronic equipment. But Dayton had _cooperated_ with the syndicate — all right, had been strong-armed into cooperation like so many others — and was no use to anyone dead. From a safety margin of ten meters, a droid team was laying a carpet of gluey foam around the conflagration to stop it from spreading.

“Lucky there ain’t much of a wind tonight,” said a voice in the crowd — just as a burning form came staggering up from the outer circle of the fire.

Han squinted his eyes. Another moment, and blurry flashes settled into comprehensible outlines, reflections bouncing off a metal body.

“Where is he?” Jiffra spun towards the household droid. “Where’s Dayton?”

“Mistress Kemál.” Soot clung in patches to the silvered carapace, but the synthetic voice sounded perky as usual. “I’m afraid that Master Dayton died in the fire.”

“Died? How?” Each word unsheathed like a blade.

“He was in his study when we last communicated,” the droid informed her. “I left the house to supervise the unloading of a supply van. Nine point two seconds later, the fire broke out. Master Dayton had no time to save himself.”

For a moment, it looked as if Jiffra might bolt and try something crazy, or simply lash out at the bedraggled droid. Han gripped her elbow reflexively.

_She didn’t know_ , he thought. The white and furious shock on her face couldn’t have been rehearsed in front of a mirror. He motioned her away from the crowd and the heatwaves. “Nothing we can do here.”

“No. Not here.” Jiffra clutched a hand around her arm, lips pressed together, catching on a curse. But anger drew up discipline instead of aggression, and her posture tautened.

Han eased his grip without quite releasing her. “You think what I’m thinking?”

“That Gol’s behind this?” Eyes locked to the combustive light, she gave a brief nod.

“Well, was there some kind of falling-out?”

“There couldn’t have been. I’d know.” She twitched her shoulders as if to shrug into composure, a specter of acceptance that didn’t reach her eyes.

_Then why?_ Han shifted uneasily. An answer swam up from the margins of logic. _He’s cutting all our ties. First, me ‘n Harad, and now this_... Irrational, to take things so personal.

“Damn him, anyway.” Maybe that referred to Dayton as much as Gol. Jiffra pushed a hand into her hair, fingers gripping hard. “I had to get him the security codes,” she said harshly. “Locks, alarm systems, everything. Gol likes to make sure he’s got his people’s undivided loyalty.”

When she slumped against him, Han could feel the fine tremors that kept running through her. She’d forged a genuine rapport with Dayton, but whether tonight’s rout could turn her against Gol was a whole other ballgame. He moved his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Kemál, let’s get outta here.”

“You could call me Jiffra,” she proposed, testing a smile.

“Sure.” Something about it gave Han a fleeting sense of déjà-vu, like an echo moving sluggishly through water. “It’s a nice enough name.”

“You think so? Gol chose it for me.” Her perfect eyebrows arched at the startled reaction Han couldn’t quite block from view. “Don’t you know he does that with all his hand-picked darlings? I wonder why he hasn’t named _you_ yet.”

* * *

Seven days and another assignment later, Han followed higher summons back to the inner sanctum. Passing from neutral ambience through twilight into Gol’s precious dark.

“Sit.” The desk light haloed an omagk game board with its line-up of brown and grubby-white pieces. One of Gol’s hands rested next to the board.

“Well, do we have MelCom Industries in our pocket?” he asked without preamble.

“We’re majority shareholders,” Han answered with the impersonal ‘we’ he’d adopted like the rest of the mob. “Clinching the deal was a joyride.”

Gol’s transactions had laid the groundwork and maneuvered MelCom into finanical wreckage. Bullied by Slick’s clones, the company owners had been spoiling to sell by the time Han delivered his spiel. Representative of a combine from the Corporate Sector, stepping in to salvage independent trade. Yeah, what irony.

“Excellent.” Gol thumbed one of the pieces on the game board into a new position. “First order of the day, we’re dropping the cooperation with Sullust.”

“I’ll let them know.”

While one of the paper-white hands toyed with the game pieces, Han made a mental note. Intell would love to hear about this; another pebble kicked into the ruffled pond of diplomatic relations with Sullust.

“Your trip to Ylab?” Gol asked, preoccupied with his game.

“Business as usual.” But inner sight flashed Han a composite image — ashfall thickening the air over the flame-seared rubble of Dayton’s estate the next morning. The man’s mortal remains mingled into the slag of his desk terminal.

Nobody aboard the Mantura had bothered to pretend surprise at the news, and Han knew he shouldn’t bring it up again, then said it anyway. “’Xcept for the fire.”

“Careless,” Gol remarked with soft irony. “But then, there’s grandeur to such an end. Blaze of glory, and all that. Well.” He stacked some of the brown pieces into a brittle wall. “Now, take a look at this.”

Ivorene lines divided the board’s three segments, a wedge at the center keeping the brown and white ranks apart — the _interlope_ , Han recalled. Could’ve guessed that the old man wasn’t just killing time by trying to beat himself.

Gol waved his hand invitingly. “What do you see?”

“A coalition,” Han suggested, relying on muzzy recollection of the game’s rules.

“A coalition that can be broken up,” Gol specified. “One of the two parties will become our unwitting, yet willing ally.”

Anticipation gripped tight around Han’s stomach and triggered a quick thrill. The tantalizing brush of something close to recognition. Here he had the whole damn game plan spread out before him, if he could read it right.

“On our side,” Gol tapped the ragged brown phalanx, “we have tradition and traditional ties. The native populace. Over there, the intruders. They’re calling the shots, but their position isn’t as secure as they’d like to think.”

Had to be referring to Nam Korlis, the strained equilibrium between local merchants and big business from the Core. Gol scooped up a handful of black pieces out of a drawer, scattering them across the interlope.

So that was his scheme. Constructive anarchy tilting the balance. Han flicked a finger at the black rabble. “And the third party is—?”

“Someone who recognizes the profitable forces of chaos.” Gol leaned forward, into the lighting that betrayed a beatific smile. “I suppose our white friends over there would call him an agent of evil.”

“No doubt.”

“Morality always weakens a system,” Gol mused, white features sharp against companionable shadow. “But there’s another important factor to consider. The prime mover. In most common games, greed drives the action. Here, it’s liberty.”

_Yeah, but whose liberty?_ To Han, his array looked like a congregation of pawns and cogs, tossed into a gambit without fixed rules.

“Perhaps you’d like to watch me play sometime?” Not needing a reply, Gol closed the topic with a summary gesture. “But first, I’d like you to take care of a top-security transfer for me. You’re going to pick up the cargo on Yerod III, a private lab there. Jaco will give you the details.”

Private lab. That meant explosives or synthetic drugs, Han supposed. “Destination?” he asked.

“Home.” Gol swept his game board into the top drawer. “I’ll take it from here. When can you raise ship?”

“Anytime.”

“That’s good news. I spoke to your Wookiee partner this morning and heard that you’ve diagnosed a glitch in the forward sensor array.”

Han bit back a sharp and totally pointless reply. If the whim took him, Gol could talk to Chewie all he liked, see where it got him. Yet something about the notion was unnerving. Holed up in the dark, the old man seemed more predictable, a static danger. “Got it fixed an hour ago.”

“She’s a fine ship,” Gol said reverently. “I should know. She was mine once.”

* * * * *

“...Be thinking of you.” Han’s voice, coming from parsecs away, still made his breath catch. A metallic rush in the background that Intell’s techs hadn’t managed to filter from the recording, overlaying what could have been a slow release of breath. With an electric crackle, the background noise faltered into silence.

“Would you like to listen to it again?” Leia tapped a key on her console. They’d already replayed Han’s message twice.

“No, that’s okay.” Luke commanded himself to a chair — _relax, keep it together now_ — and returned a vague smile. Sure beyond reason that those parting words were for him alone, absorbing them like the breath that entered his lungs, his pulse speeding up —

“What do you make of it?” Leia asked carefully, through a smile of sheer relief.

“It sounds as if he’s been accepted into the inner circle. At an amazing rate, too.”

“Right.” Her smile reached full glow at that. “I’ll inform Lord Duscath personally. No doubt the Sullustians will call for an immediate strike again, to save face, but I’m sure we can restrain them a little while longer.”

“How much longer?” Unrest growing on him with each day, Luke couldn’t stop himself from asking, trusting Leia to catch on without further explanation.

“That’s difficult to judge, isn’t it?” Leia poured herself a glass of water from the carafe on a side table. “But if this report is any indication, we’ll have enough information to devise a strategy shortly. Perhaps Han will be back by the time we sign the treaty.”

_If only_.

“You’re worried that they’ll catch him at it before he can get out.”

“Yes, and it’s—” Luke broke off, jarred by a different sensation that built with unsettling suddenness. Like the deep, tremulous note of a gong, on the edge of hearing range. Its resonance spilled through him in quickening heaves.

“Yes?”

“Leia... I don’t know — do you feel anything unusual?” Dizzied, his eyes drawn to the glass on the desk. Thin ripples trembled in the water and shivered outward.

“Like what?”

The glass juddered on the polished surface, sliding as if the ground had tilted sideways.

“Oh, good lords—” Leia punched the com unit. “Security. What’s going on?”

“Everything’s under control,” someone from the building’s ground floor reported with mechanical confidence. “We believe there’s a quake out in the country somewhere.”

A long ripple passed through the entire structure like a quivering breath, and with another jitter the glass tipped, water spilling in slow motion as it rolled over the edge, and fell —

“You _believe_?” Leia snapped. “Can we verify this assumption?”

— shattering on the floor.

“In a moment, Your Highness.” A sequence of clicks patterned the silent interval, then the voice of security returned. “We’ll patch you through to the Geological Institute.”

Three transparent shards rocked gently back and forth, rhythmic glitters in the sunlight.

“Minister, our sensors register a groundquake in the clan territories along the northern coast,” a crisp female voice answered Leia’s question. “It’s a known area for geothermic disturbances, but I assure you, there’s absolutely no cause for alarm in the capital.”

Another ripple stole through the floor, jingling carafe and glasses like wind chimes.

“Thank you.” Leia flipped the channel again — “Security. Please keep me apprised of any incoming reports from the disaster area...” — then she sagged back into her chair and murmured, “Heavens, I hope it wasn’t that bad.”

“It’s over.” Luke eased his grip on the chair’s armrests, the sickening roil fading to mere tingles, shot through with a distant clamor of voices. Receding rapidly. He picked up the broken glass and placed the shards on the table.

“And you could feel it coming.” Where others reacted with unease, Leia managed complete matter-of-factness, neutrally charting the scope of his abilities.

_Yes. But why now?_ A stormtide had flooded several islands in the Ocassa Sea only a week before, and he’d sensed nothing. Luke paced to the window. The sun-glazed city lay open to midday, air traffic picking up as he watched. From the spaceport’s direction, a swarm of supply shuttles swerved and darted northward.

Inside another minute, the comlink signaled a call from the coast.

“Several settlements were affected,” a security officer informed them from a sizzle of static like smoke. “We’re counting over three hundred injured citizens so far, but their houses and municipal facilities took the brunt of the damage. No casualties confirmed as yet. Our scanners show life-signs beneath some of the collapsed buildings. Rescue teams have been dispatched.”

“Thanks,” Leia responded. “I trust that all necessary measures have been taken to shelter the rest of the populace? Is there any danger that additional quakes will follow?”

“According to the experts, that’s extremely unlikely,” the man said tersely. “We’re evacuating the primary focus zone as quickly as possible.”

Exhaling a long breath, Leia switched off the com and gripped her hands together. “It looks as if we have reason to be grateful... Are you okay?”

Luke pushed away from the window. Sudden quiet moved in phantom waves through the room, floating on silvered daylight. “Yes. Just puzzled.”

“It doesn’t always affect you like this, does it? Is there a pattern to it?”

“None that I can see.”

Leia cocked her head, consideration passing through her glance. “I’ve got another hour before the meeting with Mon Mothma,” she said after awhile, “and frankly, I don’t think I can concentrate on paperwork right now. Perhaps you’d like to try another exercise with me? If you don’t mind doing it here. I could use your calming techniques.”

“I guess I could use them myself,” Luke admitted. “And the place doesn’t matter. Ben started teaching me aboard the Falcon.”

“Now _that_ must’ve been fun.” Quirking a smile, Leia let herself be steered to the settee. “Same procedure as usual?”

“Yes. Try to relax.” Luke settled down beside her, twisting his mind away from the vexing puzzle. “Let go of time and conscious thought...” The words addressed to himself as much as Leia, he echoed Ben Kenobi across a divide of years. “Concentrate on your own body. Blood... breath... heartbeat. Gather it around you and draw it close. The rhythm and its light...”

Behind and ahead of her, he entered the same trance, suspended in the same lambent void. Heartbeat keeping time with a subliminal pulse, on the edge of sensation. He could trace Leia’s presence beside him — facets of self familiar yet separate — and felt the gradual incline of focus.

“Let yourself go with it, let it carry you inward.”

Like a cloak, he spread the Force around her, ripples in the folds that would catch and counterpoise any loss of balance, unfurling. Liquid energies warmed his veins, sliding and promising a moment’s dissolution.

“Luke...” With a gasp, Leia flinched out of the restful pose. Rapid movement behind her closed lids, the fine skin crinkled with confusion. “It felt like... like I could touch something enormous inside me. Boundless, and still inside me.”

Each breathless word recalled his own need for anchorage. Luke took her hand, touching mirrored revelation.

“Too intense to be called light, but that’s the closest I can get.” Leia’s eyes opened slowly and appraised the room like an inconclusive dream. “That was the Force, I suppose?”

“You’ve only had a taste of it.” Luke felt her fingers tighten around his own, sharing more with a light tremor.

“Funny... I _could_ almost taste it.” She moved to the settee’s edge as if to shake herself loose, insulating the experience for scrutiny.

The comlink pinged again, strident in the lasting quiet.

“Wait, I’ll get it.” When Luke toggled the switch, Threepio’s voice insinuated itself, thin with agitation. “We have just received a news bulletin about the terrible disaster that—”

“Yes,” Luke broke in, “can you transfer the data to this console?”

At his back, Leia pulled to her feet. Crossing back into a business zone as the console hummed to life.

The bulletin had been scrapped together in haste, to soothe worries and appease the hunger for spectacle. Images and sounds collected by a remote-controlled pickup began pouring through the system. Leia seated herself in front of the monitor, shoulders squared against any distraction.

An artificial eye wandered drunkenly across a panorama of collapsed walls, broken girders and dust clouds, deep fissures in an old locktar road, fallen trees over the carcass of a binary mower. Victims gray as the dust on stretchers. The visual zoomed in on bright blood stains, splashing color across the monotony of destruction. A murmured chant underscored the voice that recited facts like a charm.

“...the regional med center reports four-hundred and seventy patients with minor injuries, eighty-seven in critical condition.”

The rumor of voices in the background rose like a river flooding its banks. With a moment’s delay, the image veered, steadied, and captured a close circle in dust-streaked clothes, hands joined and heads bowed. Until one of them wheeled with startling speed, thrusting himself into the transmission focus.

“Doom comes. This is only the beginning.” Sand and grit clotted a thin black beard. A smile of pure knowledge touched the man’s mouth. “Take a look at the prophecies and reconsider. The chosen people will start their journey soon—”

The pickup jerked back, seeking a saner target, reducing the man’s voice to mutters. “—sacred ground, where we’ll await the return—”

Luke bent closer, chilled before he could analyze. _Just me_ , he thought, _hearing things_ , but asked anyway. “Can we replay that?”

They listened to the blurred sentence several times, but it was always the same. “...await the return of the millennium falcon.”

“What a strange coincidence,” Leia said at length.

A shiver rode up Luke’s back. “I don’t think it is.”

He closed his eyes. Painted sky disintegrating into purple and azurite pigments. And a ship like an ancient shadow of the Falcon. _Too close to home_ , as Han might have said.

“There’s something I’d like to show you,” he said. “I think we can go there and get you back here in time for the meeting.” 

 

First impulse had guided him to the Guild House, but when they strode down the corridor, Luke felt that sense of direction fade.

“It’s here...”

Wooden portals still wide open. _Was_ here. Wet chalky smells filled the large room. The missing outer wall had been rebuilt almost completely, rough bricks framing the space for two windows. An empty paint vat abandoned at the center of the room.

“They’re gone.” Luke swung a glance around the chamber, across each wall, now neutral canvas, white-washed reflectors of daylight. “The first time I came here, all the walls were covered in ancient frescoes. Illustrations of the prophecies.”

“The prophecies that proclaim the end of the world for next month?” Leia frowned. “What about them? Why did you want me to look at these frescoes?”

“There was a picture of the Falcon, right here.” All that whiteness filled his vision, as if urging thought aside to make room for a subtle pull. Tremors in the ground strumming his nerves again. “A ship that looked like the Falcon,” Luke amended. “And a single star. But that was just one scene.”

“Well, it’s impossible that they were simply painted over.” Leia stepped closer to a wall, tapping the fresh coating that dusted her fingertip. “Let’s go and find out what happened.”

A protocol droid informed them that the frescoes had been carefully removed for restoration and shipped to a facility in the north. “Only the artisans in that area still work with the original pigments and colors,” he explained. “It will require months to repair all the damage time has done to these marvelous works of art.”

“That’s pretty close to the disaster zone,” Leia said when they walked back to the foyer, equipped with coordinates and the name of a small town. “Though I’m not telling you anything new with this, am I?”

Luke shook his head. “I need to go there, find out what those images mean.” Sensations pulled together to form a nexus that denied coincidence. Heading him north, unquestionably. “First the quake, and then that reference to the Falcon...”

“Well, if the name is part of a popular legend,” Leia interjected, “it makes sense that the first owner picked it for that very reason.” They stepped out onto the broad, weather-worn stairs. “But if you have a hunch about it...” She paused to touch his arm. “I suppose you’ll have to follow up on it. After what I’ve just felt, I can understand how compelling it gets.”

* * *

Long shadows traversed a deserted plaza, each line drawn out into thin black arrows. Luke breathed deeply of the chill air as he climbed from the skyhopper. Lightheaded from traveling against time, apprehension driving him across the northern highlands where sprawling industry made way to barren brown fields and the purple swell of high moors. _No time to lose_. A pull that swerved into irrational misgivings. And just before he’d landed, he’d caught a glimpse of the open sea again, the spindly shapes of off-shore mining towers glinting copper like a warning.

A minor trail of destruction traversed the eastern side of the plaza. Wind lashed at the fragments of roof tiles, fallen branches and a bent weather vane. Across the geometry of shadows, Luke walked up to the restorators’ workshop that loomed on the far side: a large structure built from near-black timbers, with a pitched roof and directional skylights instead of windows. Double doors opened directly onto the work area. In the middle of the hall floated huge antigrav trays.

“Cut that friggin’ draft!” a voice rang down from the roof. “Right now!”

Luke pushed the door shut at his back. From high up in the light-steel scaffolding, a coveralled woman glared at him. Quick steps took her to the access ladder. He waited until she’d climbed down.

“I’m sorry to intrude like this. I’m Luke Skywalker, and I’m here to—”

“And if you were Han Solo himself—” She broke off, eyes narrowed for a closer scrutiny. “Skywalker, hmm?”

Luke shrugged, startled and bemused. “What made you mention Han Solo?”

“Well, he’s fairly popular around here. A hero, you might say.” The woman brushed some loose strands out of her face, her gray-flecked hair pulled back into a short tail. “You probably know all about it. Anyway. I’m in charge of this outfit, that’s why I’m still around after hours. Marce Peglar.” Her smile was short-lived and perfunctory. “So. What brings you here?”

“These.” Luke gestured at the floating trays that cradled the frescoes, fragile layers of plaster and pigment.

“Should’ve thought so.” Her expression softened briefly as she glanced across the array. “Hell of a job.”

“I first saw them when they were still in place in the Guild Hall,” Luke started to explain. “I’m looking for someone who can tell me what they represent, and how they relate to the prophecies about the turn of the millennium.”

“Guess you’ve found who you’re looking for.” She dusted her hands off against the pants of her coveralls, adding a sweep of blue to streaks of powdery umber and gold. “What a day. First we get a quake, and now _you_ blow in. For a while there I was worried the roof might come down on top of us.”

“I could come back tomorrow,” Luke suggested, and heard the note of impatience in his own voice.

“That’s okay. We can talk in my office.” A color-stained hand swept up to point at a door in the far shadows. “And how’m I supposed to address you?” She eyed him with blunt suspicion. “I just hope it’s nothing too fancy.”

“How about Luke?”

This time, the smile came without prompting. “Right then. Call me Peg. Everybody else does.”

As they wandered past the frescoes, Luke could see that they were all covered by a shiny, protective fluid. Colors liquid and radiant beneath the thin film, like teeming reefs under water. His pace slowed with recognition, an odd sense of homecoming that settled his mind.

“The Guild Hall cycle isn’t the only one of its kind,” the restorator said, “but it’s pretty unique. I’m glad to be getting my hands on it.” She pulled a rag from one of her pockets and rubbed a blue stain off her wrist. “All those scenes represent visions which some people take for a prophecy of inevitable disaster. They’re highly symbolic though, meaning they’re open to all kinds of interpretations.”

“So they don’t necessarily predict disaster?” Luke asked as they entered her office.

“No. Just the end of our world as we know it.” Peglar gave a small grin full of sarcasm. “I prefer to think they merely predict change. Which always involves mayhem anyhow.”

Among the spate of technical equipment, utensils and piles of research material, she located a chair and pushed it over to Luke. Colored prints had been tacked to a board behind her desk, a chance mosaic of complex tableaus and magnified details.

“I’ve studied the Fall Cycles for some time,” she added. “That’s what they’re called. A couple of epic poems and inscriptions go with them, which helps us make sense of the old paintings and frescoes.”

Luke dropped into the chair, but his eyes kept wandering across the prints, searching among twisting ornaments, brown landscapes and dramatic scenes. A tall, four-armed silhouette devouring a piece of sky. Planks forming a ramshackle bridge over burning fields. A battle between winged creatures against the black spine of mountains.

“Is there any kind of system to these visions?”

“Actually, there is. The sequence of events varies occasionally, but not much. First, the ground trembles and roars...” The restorator spread her hands and glanced pointedly at the ceiling. “Had a bit of that today, but that’s not exactly unusual in these parts. Next, the sun disappears, ‘as if a vicious shadow had stolen it from the sky’...”

“An eclipse?” Luke inserted.

“That’s the only way to interpret it, I suppose,” Peglar agreed. “Finally, a great light shows in the nightsky. That’s the third sign, before the final cataclysm sets in. The visions get murkier from there, but they predict a series of plagues, armed conflicts and disasters.” From a stack on her desk, she pulled up a print that showed a painting on cracked hardwood. “And in come the messengers of the gods to contribute their share.”

Across the furrowed surface stretched a cloaked figure, robe and boots bleached to the color of bone. After a moment, Luke could make out clustering shades in the background, the spear each carried piercing a lime-white star.

“Are they considered to be evil forces?”

“Maybe playful and wicked more than evil, most of them. The gods send their emissaries to decide how we’ve handled their creation and their gifts. The trials and tribulations that follow amount to a final test. After much battling between the forces of creation and destruction, the chosen people will be taken away to a city in the sky, by the name of _Man-tyr-antáir_. Translates as ‘sky dragon’, though that’s questionable, too.” Peg’s glance drifted across the pile of prints. “Though most of the context is largely forgotten, variants of the name have been used throughout Corellian history. One of our earliest spacefaring explorers was called the _Mantura_ , to honor the tradition. The name’s still a favorite among die-hard patriots.”

“What about the millennium falcon?” Luke asked. “I heard that name mentioned in this context today.”

“Oh, of course.” Peglar swung around to sail another print from the board across the surface of her desk. “You have no idea how much talk there’s been about Han Solo flying a ship by that name, and playing such a large part in the war against the Empire...” Her tone turned caustic again, perhaps to cover some awkwardness. “Guess that’s been exaggerated somewhat.”

“Not by much,” Luke answered with a wry smile.

The print placed in front of him brimmed with empty sky — and a wide wingspan mirrored in the sea below, talons and beak breaking the waves in golden brown shimmers.

“That’s one of my favorite representations of the falcon,” the restorator said, fondly tracing one dark wing with her thumb.

“Another messenger of the gods?”

“Exactly. With the turn of every millennium, the falcon arrives, either to bless or to punish Corellia for any misdeeds. And at the end of times, the millennium falcon, quote, _will seed the earth with destruction and drown himself beneath the waves_.”

She pinned the picture back to the board, next to a larger print that caught Luke’s gaze like a cue from a vague dream. A pale twig sprouting from the mouth of a dead man, shoots twisting in every direction, so that a webbed cloud of pallid thorns and branches was hanging over him, blending into the filigree that framed the scene. The man’s head was tilted back at an unnatural angle, his hands bound over his chest.

Luke gestured at it, something clutching in his gut that wasn’t quite recognition yet. “How does this scene fit in?”

Peglar cocked her head at it. “This picture? It’s traditionally known as the Fallow Strain. Something of a puzzle, that is...”

An obscure message suspended in silver. HUMBLE SERVANTS OF THE FALLOW STRAIN, the words formed tauntingly on a read-out screen. Sudden cold curled around the back of Luke’s neck. “What does that mean?”

“No one’s sure what exactly it refers to. Some think it implies possession by a demon, or a tainted family line, but there’s another school of thought that takes it to symbolize a disease. Strain, as in virus.” Peglar frowned, perhaps misreading his distraction as doubt. “It’s not that far-fetched. The last big epidemic that swept Corellia was called by that name. It causes extreme seizures, which might be the reason why the man’s hands are tied in this painting, and it affects the body’s capacity of regenerating the blood. Hence the ashen skin color.”

“And those branches symbolize the way it spreads?” Luke realized he’d been rubbing at his right wrist, as if trying to chafe warmth into it.

“That’s what I believe. But this epidemic occurred only three hundred years ago, and the oldest representations of the Fallow Strain precede that date by centuries. It’s equally possible that the virus was named after the predictions, not the other way round.” She glanced back at the print. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

“I just heard it used recently, but not in connection with the prophecies.” Luke shook his head, cold suspicion spreading, and had to ask, bizarre as it would sound — “Do you believe there’s anything to them?”

“Well, we’re odd folk out here,” Peglar replied, unfazed and patently amused. “At least if you listen to the Southerners in the big cities. With the clan people, there’s room for a variety of beliefs, but we’re none too serious about it. Deities and demons: can’t hurt humoring them. That’s the attitude.” A shrug went with that statement. “My own folk are superstitious to the bone, so I should know.”

“Some people seem to be quite serious about it.”

“The Skylars, you mean?” Amused tolerance touched her voice again. “Well, we’ve seen some pretty drastic changes recently. If you ask me, there’s still a lot of anxiety and confusion, and I suspect the Skylars channel those feelings. There’s something reassuring about the notion that some unavoidable disaster is approaching.”

Luke shifted his shoulders. A notion on the far side of his growing unease, impossible to grasp. And it had to show on his face, too.

“In a weird kind of way,” Peglar went on to explain. “It keeps the picture simple, and you can stop worrying about mundane things, about problems you don’t have to try solving anymore.”

“I suppose so.” Luke glanced back at the print, in need of something to ground his thinking. “What about... what if someone used the prophecies for political purposes?”

“There is that,” she agreed. “Just what happened when the Imperials took over, in fact. I still recall my father saying that Emperor Palpatine’s the _Reaper_. Superstition or propaganda — that was common talk at the time. The resistance movement in these parts drew on the prophecies to rally support.”

“And that’s the Reaper?” Luke glanced down at the pale figure in the hardwood painting.

“Yes. He’s one of the driving forces during the final ordeals. The original name translates as white shadow...” Peglar turned the print over and read out from the notes someone had scribbled across its back. “ _White shadow, touched by the breath of gods_. He’s supposed to be a mystery even to those who follow him, and Palpatine was a pretty good match.” She leaned back, stifling a yawn against the back of her hand. “So, are you going to tell me why you’re asking all these questions?”

“I wish I knew.” Still sifting through doubts and vague recognition, Luke gave a small shrug. “I just have a feeling that there’s something going on, and it involves the prophecies.”

“A feeling,” Peglar echoed with mild sarcasm. “I suppose that’s part of being a Jedi, is it?”

“Peg, I’m sorry if I’m making it sound—”

“No, no, that’s okay,” she waved it aside, half apologetic herself. “And no offense. But let me know when you’ve got it figured out.” Not bothering with courtesies, she checked the chrono. “If that’s all, I’ll show you out.”

As they crossed the hall, Peg switched off the lights, one glowpanel after the next winking out. Gray glimmers of halfmoon light reflected in the liquid that filled the antigrav trays. A mere hint of illumination, yet enough to conjure images that didn’t connect.

The Fallow Strain. The millennium falcon swooping out of the waters, and the slow crawl of a shadow across the sun. Close to the exit, Luke paused in front of the fresco he’d wanted to see the most.

“This one can’t be very old.” He leaned over the tray, indicating the pronged shape. “The air craft here looks like a forerunner of freighters that are still in use.”

“True.” Peglar stopped beside him. “And when you look closely, you can see that there are several layers. The original frescoes were painted over and modified repeatedly to accommodate later tastes. I haven’t run all the tests yet, but the most recent layer should be around two hundred years old.” She thumbed the remote again, and another glowpanel flickered off, a slab of cinder above the glistening tray. “People couldn’t decode the old symbols anymore and replaced them with elements that made more sense to them.”

“And this air craft replaced the millennium falcon?”

“Very perceptive. In fact, I have a theory about that, if you want to hear it.” She waited for his nod, one hand tracing thoughts along the rim of the tray. “I think that part of the Fall Cycle was turned into a play, or a ritual for a short period,” she started. “With a craft like the one we see here replacing the mythical falcon. Nobody could make much sense of it, but we’ve got a group of texts that celebrate the final advent.”

Another cold thrill caught at Luke, another sliver of insight trailing it. “The final advent?”

“That refers to the falcon’s last return to Corellia. The beginning of a new era, and the end of the old—” Peglar broke off, tossing him a sharp glance. “What’s wrong?”

_Everything_. But that was all, his mind refusing to assemble jagged fragments into a logical whole. Too many connections between Nam Korlis and Corellia. Between the syndicate and Han. Holographic stars adrift under a vaulted roof.

“Another one of your feelings?” Peglar’s irony was deliberate this time and served to snap him out of his abstraction.

“I’m afraid so.”

She gave him a long look, abruptly void of amusement. “Well, be sure to tell me when it starts making sense to you.”

 

A short while later, Luke activated the com in the skyhopper’s cockpit. A feeble glint of stars on the edge of his sight, fear sliding cold as steel in his gut.

Leia replied almost immediately, still busy in her office. “That was quick. Have you found out anything—”

“Yes,” he stopped her, no longer thinking about it, words urging out ahead of reason. “We got it all wrong, Leia. There’s more to this than just a ganglord’s ambition to control the Rimworld market. This is about Corellia, and Han got caught in the middle of it for a reason.”

“Now you’re losing me.” Leia’s voice was terse with frustration.

“I can’t tell you how it all fits together, not yet, I need to think it through, but—” For a moment, something dark and hard clogged in Luke’s throat. He tried to swallow it aside. “They must’ve planned it that way from the start. They wanted Han... and the Falcon.”

* * * * *

A hand over his heart, clenching tight — like a warning — then open and soothing, a lighter touch spreading warmth in slow seductive waves, a connection formed from the inside out. He shifted, finding its core — _there_ — and clenching want beat out a response against the inside of his ribs. Sensations strong and heady like fingers gliding down his side, his belly, a shiver fetching heat against the cool air. _Han_... Caress of a murmur against his neck, warming on skin, gone again before he could reach out. A shadow molding his back — _touch me_ — stroking heat out of his spine, around the ribcage and down — _‘s what I need_ — until it pulled tight in his chest, sharp and bright like a hook catching, a heated thread drawn out between his breastbone and his groin — _gods, Luke_ — where a liquid pulse swirled, recalling smooth skin and muscle pressed against him. A ripple of light down one arm — _Han, wake up_ — and breath blown into his mouth, fingers laced through pale silk, silky air, tracing a smile.

And he didn’t want to wake, the scalding thread drawn tighter, arching his back, pulled in two directions at once — _need you_ — yet caught together by the same desire. Sheets tied tangled around his legs with the satin friction of dreams, fevered and compelling. Hard rhythm contracting deep in his groin, pushing for symmetry, pushing off the bunk.

Awake to harsh breaths, finally, unstoppable, pulsing with the overflow of pleasure, into his own hand.

Han rolled over, readjusting slowly to the familiar dark space of his cabin. Keeping his mind focused elsewhere worked only for so long, he’d known that much before. The fading thrums in his body eclipsed the deeper tension only for a moment. Almost an ache again. _Damnit, Luke_. A defenseless feeling falling open like a pit.

_You could call it by its name for a start_. Han kicked the sheet aside, abruptly uncomfortable. _And then what?_ Had to keep himself from reaching for Luke like a lifeline — gods, it’d hit him so hard this time, worse than before, when he’d set himself on an outbound course, the only decision that made sense. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, thinking that he should’ve known: time and distance never cured anything. And here he was, charting the depth of another fall. The one he’d taken with his eyes wide open.

_It’s nothing. Just that I wanna hold you again, whatever it takes_. And leave it at that. For now, for another day, another goddamn week, but not much longer. He was getting closer now.

Han shifted to the edge of the bunk, moving out of the warm hollow like he could discard the memory with it. High time to get up and to it. He’d prepared for this op long enough.

Under the shower, a first tingle of adrenaline scooted through his gut as he recapped the particulars of his plan. _Take no chances_. But if Slick stuck to his habits, he’d get an exact ten minutes of unwatched rifling through Gol’s business files. It was early morning, ship’s time, the cleaning droids should finish their round in a few. While Jaco Tyr and his cloned cohorts were still dawdling over breakfast.

Stomach empty and clenching, Han stalked across the docking bay. In the berth next door, the shadowmen were unloading freight in unmarked crates. Ammo and detonators, most likely, by the heavy armoring of the crates.

Han watched for a moment, his last run still troubling him. The lab guys on Yerod III had been just as tight-lipped as all of Gol’s associates, but the shielded containers met the specs for organic material. No explosives then, and Han couldn’t think of any drug that required transport in stasis either. Yet the scans he’d run aboard the Falcon had been inconclusive, and there was no way he and Chewie could break the seals, give that shipment a visual check and hope for their tampering to go unnoticed.

During the past tenday, traffic to and from the Mantura had picked up, sure signs of a big operation in progress. Han quickened his pace as he approached the lifts, impatience taking over. No further briefings from the old man yet, and no directives for a new assignment either.

Jaco Tyr’s office was located one deck below Gol’s gloomy residence, a gleaming high-tech den in a row of identical shrines, all equipped to coordinate transactions and monitor the market’s nervous fluctuations.

Han entered the memorized code and breathed out slowly when the door slid aside. Only the read-out screens glared back at him. His hands started talking to the keypad before he’d slipped into the seat, waking the monitor from its silvery doze. Reading the password off Jaco’s flying fingers had taken a full score of well-timed visits, but it looked like he’d got it right. Blue spirals circled on silver while the databank went through a series of soft hums.

Han inserted a datachip and swept a glance across Slick’s desk, neat stacks of print-outs and wafers arranged like a pliant army. No messy paperwork anywhere, one-track minds like Jaco had a lot of excess energy to waste on compulsive order.

A sharp click drew Han’s eyes back to the screen that flashed him a directory. He paged through to the list of allies and contractors and skimmed the long column of abbreviations and shorthands, highlighting the whole shebang for high-speed download. Only an acronym at the bottom of the list tripped instant recognition. FOFA_NK. _What the—?_

At his back, a second console rattled to itself, its oversized monitor strobing bright green flickers around the room. Han slapped a key that opened the file and grated a curse at the thoroughly mangled contents — ragged cavalcades of symbols, letters, ciphers — Intell’s slicers would have a field day breaking down the heavy encryption. But from the look of it, there’d been regular trafficking going on. _The freakin’ Fraternity on Nam Korlis. So here’s the connection_...

The console bleeped, and Han supplied the second datachip, sparing a glance for his chrono. Two minutes and counting. When the download finished, he had seventy seconds left to wipe every trace of his crude foray. Made it, thanks to Castor who’d shown him the ropes of basic hacker skills. In another moment, the blue spirals resumed peaceably. _Out. Now_.

Han slipped the chips into an inner vest pocket and made the corridor in time to hear footfalls down the intersecting passage. Kept walking at the honest pace of a dutiful hireling.

“Were you looking for me?” Slick’s voice intoned at his back. Timed like a sani droid going after the vermin.

“Yeah.” Han turned slowly, a rehearsed excuse at the tip of his tongue, but Jaco beat him to it.

“That’s right, you’re due another paycheck. Come on in.”

When the door unlocked again, a scroll of stock market news across the bigger screen hooked Slick’s attention like a magnet. “I’ll be right with you.”

“Don’t strain yourself.”

“These are busy days for all of us.” Tyr slunk into a chair and tossed Han a smile that blended right in with all the chrome polish. “It’s getting to a point where we need to hire more pilots.”

“Well, I’m not signed up for a new run yet,” Han returned.

“Ah, but the boss wouldn’t want to waste your talents like that.” Slick’s cockeyed smile questioned whatever talents there were. “The type who’s got nothing on his brains except flying will do fine. Like your friend Rycco. Pity he’s no longer available.”

His well-aimed jab found its target. Beyond anger, misgivings needled Han with fine darts — but how would Slick know that he’d just nailed the Fraternity connection? He set his teeth. “Yeah, a real shame.”

Another file downloaded with reedy whistles, and Tyr swung back towards his monitor. Columns of blue figures poured up against the screen. “Fascinating,” he murmured. “They’re in a frenzy...”

_Favorite poison_ , Han thought. Some guys got high on Kessel spice, and some got the biggest kicks out of financial gambles on the legal side of the fence. “You about to blow the stock market to pieces yet?”

“Ah, no. We’ve just tossed another stone into these placid waters.” Tyr wrenched himself away from the monitor’s revelations, a hazed look lingering in his eyes. “Nam Korlis is hardly worth the trouble. Just one of Gol’s favorite playgrounds.”

From a drawer, Slick extracted a debit chip, holding it gingerly between thumb and index finger. “Payment for your services. Including a little raise, courtesy of the old man.”

“Thanks.” Han stashed it and made for the door.

“Oh, and he wants to see you,” Tyr continued blithely. “Deck twenty-seven, section A2.”

“Sure.” Deck twenty-seven was property of the dark, home to creeping lichen and toxic fungi. Careful to keep up an untroubled front, Han stalked from Tyr’s office. Too many implications jostling for position in his mind, too many dangling threads that had to intersect somewhere in Gol’s intricate spiderweb.

_The Fraternity_ , he started over, steps ringing hollow across the metal laminate of the deck. Rycco couldn’t have known he’d signed his sorry hide over to the syndicate when he’d taken the courier job — could he? Making an easy target of himself, trotting up to his own execution like a smiling has-been. _Damn them_...

Brother Pearson’s face floated up from recollection, sugared sincerity shining from that round, nondescript face. Another facade for dirty deals and rank merchandise, no surprise there, though the muck’s special brand remained a matter of speculation. _Spice?_ Han wondered. Or perhaps Gol routed his funds across the pious brothers’ desks, dunking his credits in the incense of religious fervor.

The lift cabin dropped past four decks and wheezed to a stop. Han blinked as he stepped out, adjusting to the fusty murk with a reluctance he couldn’t overcome. On his right, the feeble lighting outlined a pile of empty stasis containers. The very crates he’d shipped over from Yerod III. So the contents were light-sensitive too, if they’d been stored here instead of the cargo holds on the docking levels.

“Solo. Good of you to join me,” said Gol’s voice from somewhere at his back.

Han turned, a laconic shrug part of the motion. “It’s not like I’m terribly busy right now.”

“Getting restless?” Metallic clicks on the deck plates dropped into near-silence, marking each step across the shadowed stretch. Gol always brought a cane when he roamed around the ship, though nothing in his walk suggested a real need for that prop. “That shall soon be cured, I promise you. Come, let me show you something.”

As they walked down the corridor, Han could hear the rustle of vermin behind the bulkhead. A thin, grating scratch of something chitinous dragging itself through the rust. The sound crawled uncomfortably on his skin, starting an imagined itch down his back.

“You know, I dreamed of space travel from my earliest childhood,” Gol said conversationally. “No sunlight to burn me, no limitations. Just these calm, black waters.”

The thready light of lucite burners thinned out further ahead of them. And maybe that was why Gol liked keeping these decks in the dark, not because he moved easier in protective shadow: just to make a home for lightless deep space in his own living quarters.

_Hardly_ , Han mocked the abstruse notion. Nobody got this far burdened with romantic pipe dreams. If anything, the derelict state of these levels echoed a taste for the morbid.

“Here we are.” The tap of Gol’s cane picked up speed, then fell to silence.

From grimy patchlight, they’d stepped into the cool, gray dimness of an observation lounge. Through the curve of a large viewport glimmered the distant ribbon of Mid-Rim stars, sunk into the pit of night.

“Stand next to me.” An impatient wave of the hand summoned Han to the clearsteel port.

_Great view_. But all the sarcasm from his personal stores couldn’t blot out the gut feeling that deepened his breath. Always the same. The view of silvered darkness stretching in every direction gave him that covert thrill of challenge, that old itch to cup each distant fire in the palm of his hand — like the game he’d played as a boy, flat on his back under the nightsky, collecting stars between his splayed fingers.

“Look down,” the old man whispered.

One level below, an ancient caravel floated, towed to the bigger ship by a skein of thick cables, held at a safe distance by massive docking clamps. The generous sweep of her hull marred by the long burns of battle, cratered holes punched mercilessly through her carbon-crusted plating. The raised gondola that doubled for a cockpit stared blindly, viewports smashed and controls frosted with layers of space dust. Beneath the curved prow dangled loops of loose wiring like seaweeds.

“There she is,” Gol said softly. “My first ship. My most trusted companion...”

Something in his voice conspired with the sight, the effect an unexpected fling with nostalgia. From a recess of Han’s mind crawled the diffuse old craving for freedom, the need to move that churned into angry unrest before he’d reached adolescence, dry tinder caught by the smallest spark. Home the name of a prison that tasted of old grief and surrender.

“You could have her repaired,” he said finally.

“Of course.” Ripe scorn edged Gol’s voice. “I could have her gutted and refitted with a new drive, new systems. But that would be just as pointless as implanting an artifical heart into a corpse.” He shook his head. “Maybe I’ll just set her adrift one day, but... not yet.”

Against his face, Han felt a cool breath coming off the clearsteel pane. For a moment he could see the Falcon hanging there, dead, infested with mynocks and boregrubs, her soul gone, corrosion completing the work of organic parasites.

The Falcon, another one of Gol’s prized possessions.

_That’s what_ he _says_ , Han thought. Gol had been very vague about dates and places, dodging solid data he might verify. Could be nothing but another shot at pushing his buttons, part of the old man’s psycho tactics.

“Guess I see your point,” Han offered.

“I knew you’d understand.” Gol tapped his cane against the deck plates for emphasis. “You’re Corellian. Sometimes I think it’s in our blood. The way we feel about our ships.”

_Like they’re alive_ , Han thought, admitting the one superstition he’d never managed to shake. Hadn’t really tried to either.

“She chose me,” the old man said with a final tilt of his head towards the butchered caravel. “Not the other way round. And I’d better find an appropriate resting place for my lady. She deserves to burn at the heart of a sun.”

He turned on his heels with the sudden vigor of impatience, every shred of indulgence cast off like so much ballast. “Well. We have other matters to attend.”

And that concluded the private audience, the spurious intimacy with the past.

“How’s your omagk game coming?” Han asked casually while they headed back to the lifts.

Gol let his breath go with a soft snort. “There’s a distinct advantage to playing against oneself. No matter what, I always win.”

“You could maneuver yourself into a stalemate though.” From the corner of his eye, Han noticed furtive black movement in the fuzzy patches of lichen that thrived around a lucite panel.

“In theory,” Gol allowed. “But it rarely ever happens. I’ve always been my best adversary.”

Through the noxious scraping and scratching behind the bulkhead filtered a different sound. So sudden and unreal, it raised the fine hair at the back of Han’s neck. A drifting note, like a woman’s voice humming, uncertain of melody and direction. Tremulous in the dark.

Could be air currents howling through some abandoned access shaft, Han supposed.

“Voices from belowdecks sometimes echo through the ventilation system,” Gol explained as if the question had flared off his forehead. “Eerie, isn’t it?” His cane struck metal again, cutting off a final, quivering note. “Now. There’s a Corellian colony in the Nyo ’Tar system. Dubbed Neotar by the Imperials. Ever heard of it?”

“Even been there once.”

Damn. So Gol didn’t want him involved with the big project after all. Unless there was an obscure connection he’d missed. Neotar lay a good ten parsecs from Nam Korlis, off a major trade route that ran past Ryloth to the Mid Rim.

The dulled lucite shine wavered over Gol’s sharp features. “You’ll be working with a new partner on this one.”

From the shadows beside the lift stepped Jaco Tyr, like a curtain had been pulled aside for his grand entrance. _Watchdog, most likely. What’s the big deal with Neotar?_

“I’ve got a partner,” Han said, “and I ain’t working with someone—”

“You will.” Gol’s tone barred argument with the coolness of cut glass. “This one time. Humor me.”

The look on Slick’s face spelled that he’d sooner be partnered with a Gundark, and Han took some satisfaction from it. _Think he’s pitting us for a dogfight to see who bites first?_

“This operation requires careful handling and time,” Gol went on. “A Wookiee would only raise unnecessary suspicions. Would you want to condemn him to shipboard confinement for the duration? No? I thought not.”

Han flipped through brief calculations; he was on the short end here, the deck stacked against him, ultimate gains to consider. “All right. I’ll drop Chewie off on Ylab.” _After he’s done bursting my eardrums_.

“The Neotar colony was established for liquid iridene mining.” Gol’s tone had switched back to amiable matter-of-factness, the lowdown directed at Jaco. “And it was based on slavery. Imperial commandos collected a group of several hundred Corellian techs and shipped them off-planet. The best and the brightest, naturally. To this day, the mines turn out maximum yields of iridene ore... because the slaves chose to cooperate and designed a specialized brand of droids for the mining labor. Neotar declared its independence a few months after the Emperor’s death.”

“I can see why.” Tyr pulled on his fingers until the joints popped and smirked at his own ingenuity. “Their profits must’ve doubled the moment they stopped shelling out a chunky bite for the Empire.”

“Yes, indeed.” The phosphorescence of fungoid growth fell on Gol’s profile as he reached for the lift controls. “But all good things come to an end.”

A soft electronic chime overlaid his voice as he named their objective.

Han’s spine went rigid with alarm. “You want us to _what_ —?”

 

“I don’t think this is about flattening competition anymore,” he said about an hour later, back aboard the Falcon. “Or fighting his way back to a position where he controls the game. He’s starting to sound more like a crazed patriot to me.”

Chewbacca had run out of steam awhile ago, resentment boiling down to brooding frustration. From the cockpit’s rear, he growled his comments in guttural tones.

“No, I _can’t_ back out now, and you know why. We said we’d bring him down.” Han gestured angrily and let his hand drop to the flight console. Suspicions and puzzling scraps of info chafing his mind, pulling former conclusions apart. Gol’s stratagems made no sense anymore — and maybe they never had.

Another snarl from Chewbacca framed a less troublesome problem.

“Nah, don’t worry, I can handle Slick,” Han retorted. “He’s too smart to bungle an assignment just because he doesn’t like me.

“Pass those chips along to Intell,” he added after a pause, “and while I’m gone, you ‘n Castor could check up on that cult on Nam Korlis. Gol’s got a thing going with them.” Though right now his thoughts were heading off in a different direction, drawn magnet-like to circle a distant pole. “And you can get another message out to Luke.”

Banal reminder that it was, it brought the taste of this morning’s dream back to his tongue. Half a dream and half fantasy that cornered him with raw, all-out want.

Chewbacca’s rumble shaded over into concern, sympathetic and quizzical at the same time.

_Yeah, I miss him, pal_. No need to state the obvious. Han leaned back in his flight chair, balanced away from the core of that feeling.

It wasn’t as if his memories of Luke had ever paled into uncertain ghosts. Through seven months of exile, he’d kept those memories sequestered like something flammable. Considered them on occasion, stirring them over for illusive might-have-beens, sometimes with a twinge of regret. Other times, with irritation at his thick-skulled ignorance.

He’d never anticipated that this one tie would pull tight enough to cut — until he couldn’t stand his own mistakes anymore, the clash of friendship and desire, the restless need for something unthinkable. But now... side-slammed by the reality, the near-perfection of it, every memory sank its barbs into him.

_I miss him. And if I spend another hour thinking about it I’ll go crazy_. But from the other half of his brain, common sense and experience pushed the notion into its proper context. _Face it, you’re just as rootless, as moorless as always, and it’s nothing but a fantasy. ‘Xcept that you got to play it out for a while_.

Caught between a charade and a life he’d never own. Jostling past a sweep of the blues that didn’t suit him, Han swung out of his chair. “We’ll be off tomorrow, Chewie. Let’s start the systems check-up now.”

* * * * *

A whistle from Artoo drew Luke’s attention off the shimmering access terminal. All around them hovered the burble of voices, the lilt and pitch of countless dialects mingling in the transfer station’s dome, rippling back down in a strange kind of music.

 _Now give me something_ , Luke thought impatiently. A lead. Anything to back up his intuition that flared with a claxon’s insistence.

From his post, he could see the light above the scanner gates brighten, red bursting into welcoming white, admitting another group who’d just shuttled down from Orbit Central. An agile Lurian, three olive-skinned humanoids, several Bothans and a tall Whiphid, white mane shining in the fluorescent lighting. Indistinct and bashful in their dust-brown robes and plain tunics, a splodge of humility amidst the loud colors and ostentatious trimmings.

“Yes,” Luke agreed, sliding a data wafer into Artoo’s input slot. “They must be the passenger group from the Loxnar liner.”

Memory of an evening service on Nam Korlis surrounded their silhouettes in the glow of pseudo-stars and devotion. But when they passed him, a close unit, something else caught at Luke. It was the way one of them walked; strides too edgy for the hampering robe, every motion broadcasting combat alert...

“Come on,” Luke turned back towards Artoo when the travellers had left through revolving doors. “Time for the meeting.” 

 

They’d gathered in Rieekan’s office again, in the mild illumination of star charts and early dusk. Luke took his seat opposite the general with a quick nod for Leia. Her face as calm as untroubled water, only a slip of concern moving through her dark eyes. Beside her, Commodore Teragk sifted through printouts with a noncommittal frown.

“Frankly,” General Rieekan said, with a sidelong glance at the collected paperwork, “I don’t exactly see the connection.”

“I don’t either,” Luke returned bluntly. “But that doesn’t mean none exists.”

Commodore Teragk straightened, his shoulders locked tight in defense. “What we have are several references to prophecies of doom. We know from Solo’s reports that the syndicate’s master-mind is Corellian... a Corellian with a passion for his homeworld, I’ll grant you. Which explains why he’s fond of drawing on popular myths and superstition, doesn’t it? Perhaps it’s his way of acknowledging his heritage. He names his operations like other exiles name their pets. To maintain a connection.”

“I’m not sure if Captain Gol is capable of such sentimentality.” The touch of amusement in Leia’s voice was clearly tactical. “Everything we’ve learned about him suggests that he’s an extremely calculating individual.”

“Yes, and I suppose that’s why he chose the prophecies instead of... more cheerful references.” Teragk smiled briefly. “Those allusions serve to spread a sense of foreboding. He’s turning himself into a legend.”

“But who’s his audience?” Luke glanced from Teragk to Rieekan. “The merchants in the Iridys sector? The businessmen of Nam Korlis? Few of them are Corellian. As a strategy of intimidation, it’s hardly effective out there.”

“That is true.” Rieekan shifted ponderously. “Assuming for a moment that he is planning a move against Corellia, he must realize that a military campaign is out of the question.”

“And if he channels his investments in order to interfere with our trade agreements,” Teragk joined, “we’ve been warned. We know far more about his business contacts by now than he can possibly anticipate.”

Frustration twitched in the pit of Luke’s stomach. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t think this is about profit at all.”

“Everything else would be completely irrational,” Teragk countered.

“Exactly.” And it dragged on his mind, ever since he’d looked at the frescoes again. “I agree that this is about Gol’s heritage,” Luke continued, “a connection with Corellia that he wants to reestablish. But we might never guess what exactly he’s planning, because it’s personal.”

Puzzled silence answered him, outlasting the limits of comfort. Daylight had shrunk to an immaterial glow when General Rieekan reached to switch on his desklight. “Then how would you have us prepare for it?”

Luke spread his hands. Hardly the most pressing concern, while Han’s life was at stake. “We still have time,” he said tightly, steeling his patience. “Whatever Gol’s scheme is, it ties in with the turn of the millennium.”

“Yes, but you’re also suggesting that we shut down our only source of reliable information,” Teragk countered sharply. “On what _evidence_? And, disregarding plausibility for a moment, what kind of trouble can someone like Gol possibly cause? Here, at the Galactic Core, with the best-equipped segment of our fleet stationed nearby!”

Evidence. He had nothing but hints and surmise, a shifting collusion of names and symbols. The Final Advent and the Fallow Strain, and scattered observations that would have to support his claim somehow.

“With Artoo’s help,” Luke answered, “I’ve analyzed incoming traffic from the Iridys sector and Nam Korlis in particular. The numbers of civilian passengers from that area has increased by a factor of three in the past two weeks."

“I think several local corporations ship import goods through Nam Korlis,” Rieekan put in.

“I wasn’t referring to merchants and couriers. These visitors belong to a sect that’s based on Nam Korlis. The Fraternity of the Final Advent.” It was something of a stretch. Visuals collected during routine scans yielded no conclusive detail, but the portside personnel had confirmed a steady influx of those unassuming travellers in sack-cloth. “And remember,” Luke went on, “the prophecies don’t just predict natural disasters, but battles and riots as well.” He leveled a glance at Teragk. “During our last meeting, you warned us about the Skylar groups.”

“Those troublemakers will always be a minority,” the commodore returned with glacial confidence. “Rest assured that we’re keeping a close watch over them.”

Rieekan weighed his head, a new wariness in his expression. “You’re suggesting that these... sectarians have come here to reinforce potentially violent groups.”

“We can’t rule out the possibility,” Luke returned. Rieekan might be inclined to consider the implications, but the commodore maintained a firmly dismissive front.

“As I said, we must keep an eye on them,” Teragk repeated. “I’ll notify Internal Security of this development. However, several hundred anarchists hardly pose a serious threat.”

“You must have heard about the riots that followed the groundquake in the north last week,” Luke insisted. “The Skylar groups are attracting greater interest and support. Events like these seem to prove their point.”

“And that is bad news.” Leia sat up in her chair and summoned the minister’s authority without effort. “We may be dealing with a small core group, but how many sympathize? As the turn of the millennium approaches, how many more will recall the prophecies and start to interpret every unusual incident as a sign that the world is indeed ending?” She paused for effect before addressing Teragk. “How certain can you be, Commodore, that hysteria and aggression won’t spread to the capital, by the time the Mon Calamarians arrive? Such a situation would confirm their worst suspicions and could endanger the membership treaty.”

“The prophecies speak of a great light in the nightsky,” Luke added. “And that’s what people will read into the coming alignment.”

“Yes, and another sign of doom is an eclipse.” Teragk released a noisy breath, projecting exasperation. “Not much of a chance that we’ll ever see one in these parts again. Since the Imperials towed our crumbling old moon to their orbital station, cycles have been aligned in a way that makes it near to impossible.”

“That’s reassuring,” Luke said, not too far from the truth. “But the one and only time that the syndicate identified itself by name, they chose an element from the prophecies ― the Fallow Strain. A disease, in all likelihood.”

He met Teragk’s hooded eyes, and even as the man gave an ill-tempered shrug, their first encounter replayed itself in his mind, against the cryptic backdrop of the frescoes. _He should’ve known_ , Luke thought. _He must have recognized the name, but he didn’t say anything_...

“Viewed in that light,” Leia’s voice cut into the notion, severely polite, “that sounds close enough to a declaration of war, doesn’t it?”

Worry hung over General Rieekan’s features, but from Teragk, Luke picked up a sense of static anxiety, something smoldering away beneath all the chiseled decorum.

“We can’t restrict immigration, Your Highness,” the general said, “but we will employ the strictest security measures. As for Captain Solo’s assignment...” His right hand wrapped over his left, confining unease. “We shouldn’t expose him to any additional risk, and if there is a danger, as Commander Skywalker suggests—” He broke off at the slip, visibly uncomfortable with the long-discarded rank. A curt gesture supplemented what he left unsaid.

“But _what kind_ of danger?” Teragk asked.

Luke considered his answer across a division that ran through the middle of his mind. In this room, he could feel it again, a separateness that had grown on him since he’d resigned his commission.

For the longest time, he’d tried to ignore it. The way isolation clung to him with every glance in his direction, appraising him, comparing claim to looks, carved ideals to a shifting reality. Jedi. If he claimed that he’d gained superior insight by ways of the Force, no one would question him. A white lie. And he wanted more than habitual reverence, he wanted their support.

“I can’t tell you anything definite,” he said, braced with a candor that left his defenses wide open. “But I’m convinced that Han and the Falcon play a crucial part in Gol’s designs. Once he realizes that Han isn’t the pawn he took him for—” _Or if Han refuses to cooperate_ , the thought laced coldly through his argument, “—anything could happen.” Luke took a calming breath. “The risk is too high. I’m going back to the Iridys sector to warn him.”

“Your interference could jeopardize the entire operation,” Commodore Teragk objected, in the tart voice of reason. “And I trust Captain Solo was fully aware of the risk when he accepted this assignment.”

Their eyes locked. Luke made no effort to screen his reaction, disbelief and challenge flaring past courtesy. Within the complex structures of politics, one man’s life always equaled a negligible factor, but he couldn’t bend his mind to that logic. Each compromise tearing another piece out of impracticable ideals. In the capital, they were safe, only a glass rattling on the table, muted violence caged in holo transmissions. But the space that meant progress and freedom to Leia was confinement to him, a masquerade that quenched everything essential.

“He’s _dead_ if they suspect anything.” Luke dug his fingers into his palm, his patience about to snap. “We’ve played into Gol’s hands by persuading Han to work for the syndicate. Removing him is in our own best interest.”

He stopped right there, heartbeat high and dry in his throat. Through the past weeks, he’d kept so much of himself suspended, wrapping the sheer force of feeling in layers of reason.

“Your concern is understandable,” Teragk said stiffly, “yet ill advised. I must object to such a course of action.”

Luke rose from his chair, gravity shifting around him. He’d rushed to Han’s rescue before, but never quite like this. A dizzying clarity pushed past propriety, all the abstract concerns that stifled Rieekan’s office. He met Teragk’s eyes with the slightest smile. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

* * *

From the curving gallery, he looked down at the sheltered landing field, the long row of vehicles a somber phalanx, blending with nightfall on the far side. Below and to the left, Artoo’s blue dome glistened through a brief swiveling motion. A worklight captured his X-wing, chrome and snow, ready to take flight. Luke ran his fingers along the balustrade. An empty space beside him, an outline he could have traced with his hands. But now there were footsteps at his back, at once firm and light.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Leia’s voice said, without agitation. “Are you leaving tonight?”

“I’ve waited long enough.” Luke turned on a breath. “I know I don’t have much to show for evidence, but we’re running out of time. It’s been five days.”

“Since the quake.” She’d slung a shawl around her shoulders, covering bare arms against the cool sea-breeze. “And you really think those prophecies are the key?”

They’d watched the report about the riots together, the crush of bodies like a second wave of destruction over the debris. Uniformed security struggling to contain aimless violence, an ecstasy of disintegration.

“The key to Gol’s plans,” Luke qualified. “I’ve downloaded everything I could find in the library banks — about the prophecies, the Fallow Strain epidemic — but I haven’t had time to study it all. Maybe there are other clues.”

“Can you transmit the data to my office before you leave? I’ll look into it while you’re gone.” Leia stepped closer, careful dispassion sliding away. “How are you going to contact Han? You can’t possibly—”

“—walk into the rancor’s den?” Luke shook his head. “I’ll talk to Castor first. He’ll know how to go about it.” His tone was too brusque, unmistakably defensive.

“I’m not here to stop you.” A smile crinkled the skin around Leia’s eyes, affectionate and troubled. “You’ve never been so abrupt with anyone as you were with Commodore Teragk today. Not since we met.”

Memory skated suddenly across his mind — a confrontation in a busy hangar, adrenaline in his veins and anger drawn tight in his chest. “You should ask Han...” Luke turned back towards the landing field, arms folded across the balustrade. “About the things I said to him when he refused to join us for the Death Star run.”

Beyond the low-slung customs wing, civilian flitters besieged the inner city, flustered lights swarming in the dark.

“Luke... I know how you must feel.” When Leia moved up to his side, he felt her shawl swing forward and brush against his arm. “You love him, don’t you?”

“Yes.” His answer came as easy as a breath, without thinking. But when his sidelong glance met hers, surprise flickered sharply. She hadn’t meant it quite like that, hadn’t expected such a quick reply, or the vehemence behind it. The small fold between her eyebrows hovered like a question.

“Be careful,” was all she said, and another smile smoothed out the minor disturbance. Her hand folded around his arm, squeezed tightly before she pushed away from the balustrade. “And please let me know what’s happening.”

“As soon as I can.”

From the harsh glare of the worklight, broken reflections splintered up at him. His fighter’s wings lifted, stretched experimentally. Ready to slice sky in another hour.

Luke straightened, his mind made up. Patterns of light blurring as a finer sense took over. He touched the Force with ease, loosening his contact with temporal reality to probe outward. Searching and projecting as he had for the past five days.

_Han... can you hear me?_

He didn’t know what to expect, what kind of resonance or response, or if that assurance was even possible. If he let himself think about it, uncertainty loomed large against incalculable odds.

Among the writings of the old Jedi order, he’d found descriptions that matched his limited experience. Force users could perceive each other’s minds and with practice achieve contact. It was what he’d felt from Vader, the powerful presence like radiation from an energy source. With Leia, he’d found a node of awareness that responded to his presence, a reflection through similarity.

With Han, it couldn’t be anything like this. No awareness receptive to the Force, a unique presence hidden among the multitudes of living minds. All he had was a knowledge impressed on his senses, a feeling like a beacon, everything non-essential pared away. Amazement that outblazed midday, glitters on the lagoon and the taste of Han’s skin — sensations came alive with a cutting edge. The mobile facets of Han’s mind like a shadow script, pulsing beneath his own skin.

From it, Luke focused alarm into warning. Scalding and searing, it dragged out of him, struck up piercing echoes, a twinge of

bright   
painful   
light bursting   
into recognition. 

_Han_. And for a moment of blinding joy, he folded around the sensation.

Balance reassembled in fits and starts, with the sound of his own gasp, hands clenched around the railing. He couldn’t be sure if he’d reached Han’s consciousness, or how much he’d communicated, but the feel of sheer _presence_ still suffused him.

When Luke opened his eyes, Artoo’s rotating headlight was aimed in his direction. The air tasted of exhaust and the sea, pungent and familiar. One more hour. Come and gone in a heartbeat.

* * * * *

“Let’s see how my little trap works...” Jaco Tyr hit another key and sprawled back in the single chair, smug confidence written all over his posture. Holed up in a rented room on Neotar, he’d spent the past days glued to a hoard of portable equipment, conversing in computer lingo like a true disciple.

Over his shoulder, Han glanced at the data screen and the procession of garbled letters, graphs and figures. “How long’s this gonna take?”

“About an hour.” Tyr shrugged. “And once I’ve got all the passwords, I’ll need some more time to reprogram the security system and clearance codes. Oh, and prepare our keycards, naturally.”

According to Slick’s humble assessment, his data trap would snag enough info to get them into the central mining complex and back out unnoticed.

“Meaning we’ll be all set to go tonight?” Han asked.

Tyr gave an affirmative grunt for answer, eyes darting up and down the screen. Outside, twilight was leaching through the layered haze of clouds and vapors that clogged the synthetic atmosphere of Neotar Station.

Faced with the choice of sitting down on Jaco’s unmade bed or remaining on his feet, Han paced over to the window. Wondering absently how Slick could put up with being run aground in a drab hole like this. From brown linoplex floor to the rickety table and a view across the dirt-crusted vents of a recycling station, the room sported as much charm as a low-class detention cell. Riding the dataflows had to make all the difference.

_Better be glad he didn’t insist on a bunk aboard the Falcon_ , Han told himself. Much as he wanted to keep an eye on Slick at all times, sharing too much private space could only snap the wary truce between them.

“Got the hardware ready to go boom, Solo?” Tyr threw over his shoulder.

“Two sets of thermal detonators and a couple bigger charges for the main axis.” And a bad case of chafing scruples, each time he handled those packages.

“Good thing I procured those blueprints for you, huh?” Jaco’s fingers sprang into a rapid dance across the keypad, isolating a segment from the datastream for instant download. “Think you can set it up so the explosions spread into both wings of the mine?”

“No problem,” Han answered, and the queasiness in his gut resumed as if on cue. “Unless they’ve made major structural modifications. Those blueprints are ancient history.”

“They’ll do.” Tyr gave a loving smile to a fresh data swell and punched through the download again. “What’s wrong, Solo? Getting the jitters?”

Seemed like his tone had betrayed too much resentment this time, and there was nothing now but to shoot for some plausible whitewash. Han folded his arms. “We’re talking about blowing a huge mining complex to so much ashes ‘n dust. One hell of a waste, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, but who’s askin’?” Tyr chuckled and stroked his chin. “You’re right though... we’re sitting on top of massive profits here. Shame to be cutting off the source instead of channeling the gravy our way.”

“Just my point. And it’s the only source of undiluted iridene in the whole sector.”

“I’ll bet Gol’s busy buying up every available barrel of the stuff as we speak. Price is bound to soar pretty soon.” One hand flung out to indicate the scale.

“He could’ve tried buying into the mining venture itself and made ten times as much in the long run,” Han kept at it. Maybe Slick had a pet theory about Gol’s motives, if no hard facts to spill.

But the man just lifted his shoulders and sighed theatrically. “Our boss’s genius works in mysterious ways. Maybe he’s got a bill to settle with the corporation managers. Or perhaps he just doesn’t like the idea of true-blooded Corellians fraternizing with the enemy. Put the brakes on corruption, and all that.” A derisive snort discarded the subject. “Way-hey, here comes another password...”

Han swallowed frustration and leaned back, a cool draft sliding past his neck. Problem was, Tyr could be right about the fraternizing thing. Nothing else clued in with Gol’s mutterings, and it set Han on edge the more he chewed on the notion.

_You’ll shut that mine down for me_ — he could see Gol’s thin-lipped smile again, full of seething shadows and obscure intent — _and make sure it never yields another gallon of iridene. We want to make a lasting impression on the collaborators_.

Orders that gave Han a warning itch between his shoulder blades. Random waste went against all his convictions anyway, and the Neotar installation was a showpiece of automated mining. Probably the reason why publicity had been kept to a minimum under Imperial administration; at the time, official doctrine ruled that slave labor was a tragic necessity in some lines of production.

_But the slaves chose to cooperate_... And it looked like they’d attracted Gol’s righteous wrath that way. He’d closed the briefing with an offhand remark about casualties — _keep the job as clean as you can_ — almost like an afterthought.

With another glance through the window, Han decided to go for a walk. “Page me when you’re ready,” he interrupted Tyr’s meld with the digital outpour. “I’ll take another look at our target.”

“Worried about accidents again?” Slick’s voice drifted, like only half his brain was engaged. “Didn’t you tell me there’s no human personnel in the main tract, just droids?”

“’Xcept for a human tech team that comes in twice a day for routine checkups,” Han said, “and they get called in if there’s a malfunction. We’ll have to check their access log first.”

“Sure thing,” Tyr answered as if he hadn’t been listening at all.

Just as well. When they’d divided chores between them, Han had made sure that logistics fell to him. Besides other benefits, it gave him the chance to take a good look around and consider damage control.

Neotar station occupied the bigger part of an asteroid that must have fallen into the third planet’s orbit ages ago. In-depth scans hadn’t revealed a molecule of iridene beneath the lifeless planetary crust, nor anywhere else in the system. Some twenty thousand residents, plus a contingent of several hundred iridene haulers and supply ship crews, made up the station’s current populace.

_No one’s gonna get hurt_ , Han repeated a half-hearted mantra as he crossed a sloping walkway. A small entertainment sector nestled close to the portside facilities, as far from the mining complex as possible, and residential areas sprawled on the other side. A controlled explosion wouldn’t affect that district. And now, he could either grit his teeth and go through with it, or blast off and blow his assignment.

_Like there’s a real choice—?_ All he could do was hope that Intell had cracked those files meanwhile and would flag the _clear out_ signal soon.

From one moment to the next, a chill pricked the nape of Han’s neck and strummed cold down his back. Without transition, every instinct screamed warning at him — totally off the scale — and he wheeled, his blaster snapped out of its holster in the same motion.

A startled breath puffed white into the cold air. No one anywhere near, no movement in the bland shadows of utilitarian buildings, nothing at all. Whatever had set him off evaporated as he scanned his surroundings.

_Bad case of the jitters_ , Han echoed Jaco’s sarcasm back at himself. He secured his blaster, sucked in another breath — and incongruously caught himself thinking of Luke, a surge of recollection triggered by something subliminal like a scent or an accidental touch. A thread of warmth running down his chest, replacing the superstitious chill.

For the space of several heartbeats, Han let the sensation run its course and settle his mind. Until cold air slid under his shirt’s collar, and he struck off at a brisk pace. Like as not, that abrupt burst of alarm was due to chronic unease about Gol’s plans and this whole mission.

No link to Nam Korlis and the big project — but all his guesswork was starting to come unraveled anyway, Nam Korlis sailing out of focus as vague misgivings took over. Maybe Gol’s tussle with the Sullustians had been a signal aimed beyond the limits of the Outer Rim. Maybe this crazy gambit served the same purpose. A challenge that would strike on Corellia, like the ancient declaration of a blood feud. But whatever Gol hoped to gain by those tactics remained in the dark like the Mantura’s abandoned levels. Discarding all his former assumptions, Han turned the pieces over in his mind and began hunting for a new fit as he headed himself towards the mines.

He’d barely finished his round when the comlink announced stage three of their operation.

* * * * *

A thin band of guidelights gave him directions to the back of a spacious hangar where the dark segmented into pylons and rectangular blackness, edged with the shimmers of structural steel. Fine-tuned repulsors cushioned the touchdown, a mere shiver running through his X-wing’s hull.

Luke took off the flight helmet, the canopy already lifting, and filled his lungs with compound atmosphere. The pressure drop thrummed against his inner ear and for a moment muted every sound.

“Stay put, Artoo,” he answered the trilled query that filtered through his headset. “If everything works out, we’ll take off again shortly. I’ll get in touch if I need your assistance.”

A first glance across the hangar revealed several parked freighters and a single yacht. No berths that could be sealed shut, though partitions screened off a handful of larger bays. Luke jumped down from the cockpit and swayed on his feet, dizziness from the long flight assailing his senses. Between Corellia and Neotar, he’d slated only a brief stopover on Nam Korlis, to meet with Castor in a dingy bar. And for more than a week, he’d lived with a constant sense of warning that scaled up rapidly when Castor briefed him about Han’s current assignment.

_I’ll get him out of there_ , he’d promised.

_Means we’re all pulling our stakes in this cozy neck o’ space, ain’t we?_ Castor’s high forehead scrunched in unhappy anticipation. _Chewbacca won’t like this one bit_.

_From what you’ve just told me, there shouldn’t be any immediate danger to Han_ , Luke assured himself as much as Castor. _All I have to do is contact him and we’re off again_.

The little man’s grin overlaid clear skepticism. _Yeah. Watch out for his partner though. Creep’s the guy’s middle name_.

His equilibrium restored, Luke crossed the hangar in quick, silent strides. Locating the Falcon in a bay close to the portals took less than a minute, but the half-second before he turned towards the old freighter, he knew without doubt that Han wasn’t aboard.

Abrupt certainty stopped Luke in his tracks. From the cockpit leaked the yellow pinpoints of standby indicators, the ramp had been pulled up, and a red scanner beam glowered from the quad guns. Sure signs that Han had left, yet he’d known before his rational mind could process actual evidence.

Pulse jumping in surprise, Luke sifted through fractured sensations — the scent of scrubsoap and salt and something sulfurous off Han’s skin, quick footfalls along the pericrete hangar floor, a sense of urgency — for a second, Han’s presence wrapped around him like a sinuous breeze. As if the air recalled his motions, a charge of molecules jangled into a subtle caress.

Luke felt a thoughtless smile take shape. A stirring in his chest that blossomed in delight and recognition. And there was no explanation, except that the past seven days had sharpened his awareness enough to anchor him to the living patterns of Han’s mind.

_No time to lose_. Luke shook himself free and unclipped his comlink. Unless Han and his assigned partner had taken up lodgings somewhere, he could guess where they’d gone.

“Artoo,” he said into the small pickup, “the Falcon’s right over here, but Han isn’t. I’ll go check the mining complex. Monitor the docking bay and let me know at once if he gets back.”

The whine of braked propulsion cut into his last words. Luke stepped back automatically, inner senses bent on recapturing the filament that connected him to Han’s presence. Homing. Focus and expand... Disturbed air currents whipped through his jacket as another vehicle lowered towards the wide approach lane. Luke inched back into protective shadows. A sleek longrange shuttle, painted in matte black, sailed into the docking space across from the Falcon. But Han wasn’t aboard, and nothing else mattered for the moment.

_Han_... Luke sent, phantom knowledge sliding through his senses like seductive fingers. Before the shuttle’s repulsors stopped sputtering, he slipped from the hangar. He had a lead now, he knew he did.

* * * * *

“Are you almost done?” Slick hissed impatiently. The sound nearly drowned out by the deep throbs of turbines, grinding at the heart of the installation.

“Just another sec’.” Han stepped back from the central axis and cast a final glance around. Something about the lefthand accessway nagged at him, a tubular passage that traversed the entire north wing of the mine. Nothing but power leads, a large pipe transporting precious iridene, and the dwindling parallel lines of tiny diodes.

With some reluctance, Han marshaled his attention back to the remote and checked the settings one more time. Twenty-eight charges registered in spooked red, a star-shaped pattern, spoiling to implode into lethal brilliance. “Yep. Done.”

Jaco Tyr’s toothy smile saluted him when he turned. “Good job. Let’s head back to the control room and wrap it up.”

While they climbed the flight of metal stairs, each step ricocheting echoes through the dark well of the mine, something kept roiling at the back of Han’s mind, worrying at a troublesome detail he couldn’t pinpoint.

Three levels above ground, the control room spread through a quarter segment of the steelglass tower, a bulwark of databanks and monitors aligned to the wide curve. Two deactivated droids stood frozen inside the door, silver statues watching over the multi-eyed glow of monitors.

“I’ll program a delay of ten minutes before the alarm bell rings,” Jaco murmured, both hands flying the keys to jog the system interface. “Can’t take it offline, or the backup program will kick in and rouse the troops.”

Han shrugged. “Gives us plenty of time to get clear.”

He wandered around the humming array, mind still picking at the vague disturbance. Outside shimmered the twin tower with its steely garland of walkways and slides for courier droids — and what the hell was wrong with that northward passage? Power leads, the stray glims of diodes, and the thick horizontal pipe...

Recognition struck right there, with a cold flush of adrenaline. Pivoting, Han clipped the remote to his belt and located the diagnostic terminal.

“What’re you doin’?” Slick groused as he punched through several screens.

“Checking up on the ground plan again.” Spidery lines glistened from the deep blue backdrop. Han keyed for augmented schematics, while his mind culled up the blueprints he’d worked with.

“Something wrong?” Tyr’s voice was closer now. Seemed like he’d finished manipulating the alarm.

“Yeah. Look at _that_!” Han stabbed his finger at the red tangent that ran all the way through the north passage. “That pipeline should plunge straight for the mineface, so the frippin’ iridene can be hauled up through a whole system of smaller pipes, almost a mile from here. But instead they’re using a drainage system to transfer everything to the north end in one big sweep.”

“Meaning what?” Slick peered over his shoulder.

“Meaning the explosion’s gonna spread hellfire through that big pipe.” The picture gained in clarity and detail as Han straightened. Administrative buildings and landing pads surrounded the northern outlet. “’Sides, it’s too close to the surface. The damn stuff was supposed to burn and spoil way down in the mines. If the pipe blows—”

“We’ll endanger harmless civilians?” Acid laced through Tyr’s sarcasm.

“Exactly," Han snapped. “That’s it. I ain’t gonna—”

But the moment his hand flew down, he felt the brief tug on his belt and spun, a split second too late — the remote glittering red from Tyr’s fingers — and he damned his abstraction, the way he’d let himself be sucked to the bottom of a single worry, forgetting that he couldn’t trust Slick enough to turn his back.

“We’re here to blow this place, and that’s what we’ll do.” In his free hand, Tyr held a small sporting blaster he must’ve worn strapped to his wrist.

“Not me, pal.” Han leaned back against the console, forcing compact coolness into voice and posture. What had Slick expected, that he’d freeze in terror the moment he saw a gun pointed his way? Whatever Jaco had in mind, he couldn’t trigger the charges before he’d left the building. “Told you the day we first met, I’m not interested in getting cooped for assassination.”

Between every word ran silent calculations — distance and timing and momentum — but Tyr raised the blaster high in his fist and took a wise step out of kicking range.

“Relax, Solo. You won’t have to worry about rotting behind bars like old Harad. Got another part for you to play.”

“Like what?”

“The dummy in the trash-heap. Though there won’t be much left to bury once this place has burned down.”

A flicker of adrenaline streaked through his veins again. “Yeah?” Han clamped down on it and channeled everything into cold derision. “Gol ain’t gonna like it, Slick. What d’you think you’ll tell him?”

“That your scruples made you clumsy.” Behind the stenciled smile flashed something feral and unsteady. “In the kindness of your heart, you thought there might be someone alive in the building and got caught in the explosion. See, you’ll be a martyr too.”

_Jealousy_ , Han thought and, _ironic_. Catching him red-handed at pinching files would have supplied Slick with a much better motive.

“And you think Gol’s gonna buy a sob story like that?” he asked, his hand inching slowly — _slowly_ — down to his blaster. “You’ll be counting worms in short order.”

“I’m doing him a favor.” Anger quivered beneath Jaco’s smart-ass tones.

“What’s your problem, snotnose?” Han drawled. Fingertips brushing the goddamn security strap he’d fastened over his blaster before setting the charges. Anything to throw Slick off balance now, just for a fraction — “You think big daddy don’t love you no more? That he’s gonna make me heir to his throne or something?”

Tyr held the blaster in a white-knuckled death grip, the smile stretching thin over his teeth. “I think you’re a fake, Solo. You’ve got your own agenda, and if Gol can’t tell, I—”

His eyes darted down and latched onto the crawl of Han’s fingers. “Get ‘em up!” he snarled. “Right now.”

And that was that. Hands half-raised, Han broke into movement, dropping sideways while he kicked for Tyr’s left wrist — black stars shimmied through his vision as he hit the ground hard — but Slick whirled the remote out of reach, his reaction time better than Han’s guess. Rolling, Han ripped his blaster free and lunged for cover behind the console.

“You’re dead meat, Solo.”

Shortened breaths severed the words. Han counted the soft footsteps — four, five — before he dived again, throwing himself around the corner and into marginal safety. Always keeping the databanks between them. If a stray shot fried a single circuit, all the installation’s alarms would start shrieking blue murder.

Careful to keep every motion spare and noiseless, he levered out of his crouch, aligning the blaster to match his best guess. One chance for a straight hit that would knock the remote away clear...

But Slick erupted into one of his oily chuckles — “gutless sonovabitch!” — and chose the one option Han hadn’t figured into the equation. He flung himself towards the door, punching controls and lurching through the black aperture.

By the time Han barreled into the plasteel surface, a crimson light flashed silent triumph, and the locks clicked into an eternal hold. No bets that Tyr was rapid-changing all the codes out there. Han sagged against the door and called himself a string of unflattering names. Cutting through those locks with a plasma beam would take too much time. If he put the splits on, Slick could make the safety zone in mere minutes.

“Bastard,” Han said through his teeth and stared out the large windows — straight at the gleaming curve of a walkway. The clearsteel panes were framed in bonded polymers, but the window’s locks and hinges wouldn’t hold up as long as the door seals.

Mid-run, he adjusted his blaster’s settings, and a moment later, the muzzle spewed a focused beam that cut with the precision of a lightsaber.

A lightsaber — yeah, right. Even as he worked, eyes squinted against gushing sparks, Han snorted at the loops his thinking went through, always circling back to the same hang-up. _Can’t keep him out of your head longer than a minute, huh?_

Around the upper hinge, transparent polymers started to sizzle and melt into long ribbons. Sweat prickled at his temples as he tried to gauge the time — one minute or two? — and how much ground Slick could have gained by now. _Dummy in the trash-heap, I’ll show you_...

Sparks everywhere, the windowframe glowing in blistered yellow, and through the back of his head ran a cavalcade of snapshots. Corellian spring rain streaming in sooty rivulets down the docking towers, bare feet splashing through the puddles, a cold shiver of liberation under the nightsky, _gotta get away from here_...

Another volley of sparks rose like the first surge of hyperlights that’d rocked him to his bones. Shocking, moorless freedom, the thrill he’d chased ever since. Until no sky seemed deep enough anymore, untouched like the luminous night that vaulted Corellia. _Had to end like this at some point_ — and right then glutinous bubbles plopped, the second hinge tilting out of its mount.

Han battered it aside with the butt of his blaster and dislodged the window with a sharp kick. _Not over yet_. Inside a second, sirens howled up from the depth of the tower, dicordant wails rising and falling in heaves, the crack between window and molten frame still too narrow to squeeze through. He lashed at it again, and brought the full momentum of fury to bear this time.

Seething drops of overheated polymers scorched through his sleeve as he pressed through. The stench of singed cloth and plastic jibed noxiously with the burns on his skin.

_A real pro job_ — Han gripped the edge of the window and flung himself out onto the narrow walkway — _but hey, so long as it works_... He careened into a slender banister, ornament more than substantial brace, and nearly went over. Another sting of pain flared in his upper right arm as he bounced back. Sirens screaming outrage at his back, he broke into a stumbling run — there had to be stairs somewhere, or a slide that would take him three levels down — judging that five minutes must have come and gone since Jaco had slammed the door in his face.

_Ain’t gonna make it_ — teeth ground together against the thought when a tocsin went off in his head, flashfire white. About to round the tower, Han slithered to an abrupt stop, knocked backwards by a warning that made no sense —

“Han!” A shout cut through the noise and sent his head into a spin.

Impossible. Han blinked sweat out of his eyes, every rational thought process fused between disbelief and alarm. Lights flared on every level, and a slanting white trapezoid captured the slender silhouette below.

“Luke!” Rocked out of stupor, he took a step forward, one hand groping for the banister.

“No, stay back!” Luke’s upturned face was a pale blur in the dark.

“What’s—?”

Han didn’t quite see it happen, but one instant he was leaning over the side, and the next Luke stood in front of him, the walkway quivering with impact.

The whistle of a blaster discharge stopped the pointless question in Han’s throat — Luke had just pulled off a standing jump across three levels, no big deal — and he fell back against the tower, into marginal cover.

A fierce swipe of the lightsaber caught the next plasma bolt, bright crimson spattering off the green blade. So Slick had turned back to catch him running — maybe that bit about the windows had occurred to him after all — waiting for Han to plant himself in the crosshairs.

As he moved up behind Luke’s back, Han spotted the crouched silhouette on one of the twin tower’s slides, poised uneasily two levels below. Ricochets rebounding off Luke’s ’saber sprayed the metal surface. Left hand flung to the side, Slick was still clutching the remote like a lifeguard.

Han pulled his blaster without further thought and fired. With a yell, Tyr flopped backwards, and the remote clattered down, straight into the steep trench of ventilation shafts that serviced the tower’s underground levels.

_Lucky there was a safety catch on that trigger_ , was Han’s first thought, _or we’d all be free-wheeling energy_. And in the space of a heartbeat, Slick was scrambling down the slide — _no way’s he gonna retrieve the damn thing now_ — running headlong for the shelter of darkness. With a hiss, the lightsaber switched off.

“Stair’s that way,” Luke threw over his shoulder.

Trailed by the siren’s rasping cries, they sprinted down, the sound of engines merging through the racket. One craft veering off at screeching speeds and several streaking towards the mine. Jaco must have taken the glider they’d parked just outside the gates.

Han launched himself at the smaller personnel door and punched his keycard into the slot. Probably wasn’t any point wondering how Luke had gained access. Somewhere on the right, headlights searched the mining precinct as they hurtled towards the dark warehouse blocks.

Thoroughly winded, Han slowed down on the next corner. One hand captured Luke’s shoulder, swung him around, and those obnoxious burns stung again as Luke’s fingers closed around his upper arm. He couldn’t have cared less.

The distant reflections of swerving headlights caught bright relief in Luke’s eyes, a beautiful smile growing out of breathless tension.

Han swallowed around a startled surge. _Just the way he looked at me on Endor_ — but there was no need now to trap the impulse inside himself, the feeling he’d shouldered into oblivion that night, thinking _we’re all goin’ a little crazy now, who wouldn’t—?_ Instead, he grabbed Luke against him to kiss that fitful breath off his mouth, impatient, frizzing adrenaline and amazement almost enough to make him dizzy.

His own breath caught when Luke’s arms went around him and squeezed, hard, hands clenching into the fabric of his jacket. Both of them pressed together in the thoughtless high of survival, clutching for contact in every possible way.

When he let up for air, pulse racing, Han reached up to touch the lean jaw. “Luke... How in hell’d you get here?”

“On foot.” Luke shrugged an apology, his smile still radiant though shakier than before, and the strange knot that had thickened in Han’s throat finally burst and bubbled into laughter.

“That’s not what I meant.” He bent his head again — “never mind, you can tell me on the way” — to savor the taste of Luke’s mouth one more time, draining every second to the limit. “Guess we should be off.”

“Yeah, he got a good head start.” Luke’s vise-grip on him eased, hands gliding reluctantly down his arms.

Another breath hitched in Han’s throat, his voice hoarse from the fast jolts of surprise and relief. “He’s a pretty good slicer, but it’s still gonna take him time to cut through the Falcon’s security protocols.” Anger frissoned through him at the thought of Slick cannibalizing his ship. Han stepped back and swung a look around to get his bearings. “Besides, he can’t fly her alone. No way.”

When he glanced back, he thought he saw a hint of worry slide across Luke’s features — just a trick of the light, perhaps. Nothing of it showed when Luke fell into step beside him. “We’d better run.” 

 

The streets brightened with bands of pallid neon and the blush of lit windows, swaying past as they jogged towards the port facilities. With every step, the fabric of his shirt chafed the burns on Han’s arm, and tension crawled out from his spine again, caged the pumping beats of his heart.

_What if Slick—?_

Pointless. A few more minutes, and they’d find out anyway. When the hangar loomed from smoggy darkness, Han pushed himself into a faster sprint, lurching forward on the spurt of alarm he couldn’t keep in check anymore. Beside him, Luke’s quickened steps fell on pericrete like an echo of his lunging pulse.

With another gulp of breath, Han skidded past the hangar portals. In a split second, the scene etched itself into the back of his head, lacerating sane thought with white-hot needles. _Can’t be happening_. The Falcon’s runlights shining in anticipation of flight, the ramp lowered and several silhouettes clustered around her landing gears — all of this, and the red gash of a blaster bolt streaking towards him at quarter speed.

He functioned on automatic and pure rage. His blaster whipped out — _who the fuck’re they?_ — spitting return fire as he ducked the shot — _stay the hell away from my ship_ — throwing himself into a frontal attack. Ozone burning from his nostrils up into his brain — _fire, run, dodge, fire_ — an acrid sting that watered in his eyes. Superheated plasma whizzed past his ear and singed his hair.

One of the shadowmen doubled over, but there were three more, one stomping up the gangplank and the second already at its foot — a blaster discharge zinging off the left ramp support — while the third had triggered the quad guns that swiveled towards him.

“You goddamn—” Han squeezed off another shot, the salt-sharp taste of fury rising from the back of his throat.

From somewhere close, Luke’s blaster barked rapidly, and Luke’s voice was shouting his name, urging retreat and full cover, but nothing much made it past the rebellious roil that welled up from his stomach. Vision narrow like a gunsight, Han kept pushing the trigger at the blurry movement below his ship — crossfire coming in staccato bursts from the rotating ventral guns — and a splatter of pericrete fragments scoured the side of his face.

“Back — Han, get _back_!”

Luke’s hand was on his arm now, yanking hard, and messed with his aim. The roar of engines trembled around him, shivered through the ground and crawled up his legs, the Falcon’s outline dissolving in a gush of repulsor steam.

“Get _off_ me!” He’d stumbled backwards, but the steams thickened, a deafening whoosh that fogged up his brain, and Luke was pulling him in the wrong direction. With a curse that came out in a snarl not words, Han wrenched his arm free, backbone impacting hard with the hangar wall as he staggered, and for a moment the fogs parted enough for him to see —

The sealed ramp, sublight engines powering up with a stab of searing brilliance as the Falcon lifted. Like his whole life blasting off to fall in shards around him.

Out of frozen shock, Han flung himself around and caught sight of the vehicle in the bay straight across. The shuttle’s hatch had been left wide open, every flash of runlights spelling _standby_ like an invitation.

_So that’s how backup got here_ — already diving for the cockpit, he didn’t care if there was anyone left aboard, but the passenger cabin glared empty — _damn bastards thought they could get away with this_ — and he dropped into the flight chair.

“Han, we can’t!” Luke had caught up in a second.

“You let ‘em get away!” he snapped, hitting flight controls without a closer look at the settings. “Lock the goddamn hatch or get out!”

He’d completed preflight routines by the time Luke took the copilot’s chair and slipped on the headset. His voice glacier-calm when he hailed port control and checked with Artoo afterwards. “Stay behind us. I’ll transfer coordinates... can you manage?”

Repulsors came online and nav controls flashed from drowsy gold to green, the power gain blending with the rush in Han’s ears. “Strap in, this is gonna be a bumpy ride.”

The sound of his own voice hovered strangely in the small cockpit, like they’d sailed down the curvature of space, and time stretched thin around them. Out of the hangar, the shuttle rocked with a forward burst and scaled dark skies at a steep angle. Straight ahead, the Falcon’s aft thrusters made a bright smear across the clouds.

Han kicked in the sublight drive the moment they’d passed the safety zone above the port. _Bastards_. He could make up for lost time by punching right through to top sublight speed — the shuttle jerked, hull plates grinding at the sudden strain — and clouds rode up the canopy in ragged strands, tearing like dirty silk one layer after the next. The Falcon a scarlet blip on the scopes, in steady acceleration.

He could hear her now, scything away from him, the tuned purr of her drive escalating to a fierce vibrancy while his hands fumbled for greater speed. Closing in, but not fast enough, and each intake of breath twisted thin knives in his chest. _If we’d just run harder, we could’ve gained a few more minutes_ —

“You know where they’re going,” Luke said over the drive’s scratchy sputters.

They speared through the cloud cover, plunging past a thin film of blue air.

“Damn right, but they’re not gonna get very far.”

“How do you think we’ll stop them?”

_Any which way_. Han set his teeth, black space gaping wide open to swallow his ship. Fired like a missile after the Falcon, he was racing her to hell and back, sweat running down his temple and the side of his nose.

Until she came around, as if in answer to his call, swooping with murderous speed. A first barrage splashed against the shuttle’s canopy in blinding hydrogen red — and red blossomed into fury, filled his vision and blanked his mind.

A hand on his arm. “Han, listen to me. Our shielding isn’t any match for the Falcon’s cannons.”

The sole comfort of polished steel biting into his palm, fingers clutching the control stick. Coming around for another pass. Firing at them.

“You’ll get us both killed.”

From the backdrop of splintered silver, the Falcon’s forward cannon array spit lines of slicing red, aimed right between his eyes, a panicked nightmare come real. _This is how it ends, this is it_ —

And for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

“Han.”

Something broke and rolled through him in a churning hot wave, his hands shaking, just steady enough for the rushed maneuver that flung them aside. The shuttle yawed, gravity fluctuations battering his chest.

“Gotta run for hyperspace,” Han said abrasively, his voice scraping thick in his throat. Every feeling walled in behind numb disbelief. _Can’t be real_. Like his own ship had betrayed him — gods, what bullshit, but if anything mechanical had a soul...

“I’ve got the coordinates for the jump, but we can’t go very far.” Luke tipped his head towards the gauges on his right. “They didn’t have time to refuel.”

“On my mark.” Han kept his eyes off the scopes and counted down seconds instead, heartbeat slowing as if trapped in some gluey substance.

“Artoo...” Luke said into the pickup.

“Now. Punch it.”

He yanked lightspeed ignition, red brilliance on the edge of his sight, and the Falcon’s pronged disk hanging there like a wraith, an afterimage dissolving in the wash of spectral color.

After the hyperdrive’s roar, the quiet rang in his ears like absolute silence. Mindless, unfeeling, insulating silence, and from it, he stared out at infinities of nothing and light.

“It’s almost a miracle you didn’t manage to get yourself shot.” There was a tremor in Luke’s dry voice — close enough to anger, and Han couldn’t blame him — hell, he’d just blown everything sky-high with his total loss of control.

_What’d I say to him?_ Hardly mattered anymore. From the pit of his stomach spread a plummeting sensation that started the long drop down, stretched endlessly like inside a bad dream. Nothing compared to this sickened, gut-wrenching emptiness, not even being plunked into carbonite.

“Han... We’ll be okay.”

He met Luke’s eyes briefly, couldn’t take that calm look of steeled isolation, and stared out through the canopy instead, at the white rage of warped space. “Where’re we goin’?”

“Tatooine,” Luke said softly. “It’s the closest inhabited planet.”

* * * * *

**Author's Note:**

> First published as a standalone novel in 2001.


End file.
